Digimon: the Rebirth of Darkness
by Musically Correct
Summary: The wars were supposed to be over. Malomyotismon was gone and the D-Reaper defeated. But then the Tamers meet the Digidestined and a girl shows up looking for a lost digimon. Suddenly everyone is caught up in a new prophesy that explains all their adventures. Now they must delve into the Digiworld's past and fight an ancient enemy. 02 x03 x04 Crossover
1. Prologue

**Just a quick note to begin. This is a story that tries to explain the different worlds in Digimon. I especially became intrigued with the concept when I figured out that Ryo was in both the 02 season and Tamers season. I know that this is not the way that it is explained in later seasons. It is based solely on watching the first 4 seasons and their movies. Basically, the events take place not long after Locomon's attack. The events of the 02 season happen during the year prior to the Tamers season. So, soon after the defeat of Armegeddemon the events of Season 3 start. This story also puts season 4 events before the events of season 1. It is set in the present so the technology is possible. Other than that, sit back and enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, I just like to play with their characters.**

* * *

'It was a year ago today,' thought a teenaged red haired girl as she jostled through the LAX airport to get to her flight. 'I lost her a year ago. That's why I've got to go back. I don't care what Gennai says. I've been careful and patient long enough. If Annalismon and I are separated forever, then we're sunk anyways. I can't be alone any longer.'

The girl thought about the events a year ago with a shudder. She and Annalismon had been sent to Japan to do some scouting work. Zhuqiaomon had ceased all contact with the other Sovereigns for almost an entire year, and they had become worried about what was going on. They had gotten the email, and since the two were on our own until an undistinguished time because of a dumb prophesy, they tended to do a lot of the behind the scenes work for the digital rulers. The other 3, particularly Azulongmon were worried about what exactly the phoenix was up to. He had never been in favor of using humans to save the Digital World, but had been overruled by the other 3 Sovereigns as well as the Celestial Digimon. However, that did not mean that he couldn't go rouge and start acting on his own. The guy was powerful and was infamously stubborn with a hot temper.

They were particularly worried because there was major activity in his quadrant from the D-Reaper, a program designed to keep the Digimon from becoming some kind of _Terminator_ catastrophe. It was also time for the chosen from that quadrant to start appearing. There was already one there, and they had been hoping to recruit him to help train the newbies. There had also been some problems with his partner that they wanted to check up on.

She remembered flying to Tokyo at Gennai and Azulongmon's request to see what the problem was. When they arrived, they found a weak spot between quadrant borders. The girl had pulled out a tag and crest and a D-3. The two items worked in conjunction and created a passage to the next quadrant, just as the pair intended.

Really everything had gone as they intended, at least to start out with. The first thing that went wrong was when they sought out the older Digidestined. He was nowhere to be found. In fact, rumor had it that he had disappeared into the Digiworld a year prior and hadn't been seen since.

Azulongmon had provided them with information on the chosen children. The pair checked each child. Three of them had gotten their digimon, although they didn't really know what they were doing. Even the one they considered the most experienced didn't understand, refusing to work with the other two as a team. There had been another surprise. The new digivices were not so much tools for digivolving so much as tools for enhancing their partner. Somehow, the Digiworld had changed the digivices to suit this new environment without the intervention of the Sovereigns.

The two had planned to go back and report all that they had found to Gennai when Makuramon attacked them suddenly. To say that they had been surprised was an understatement. They were essentially being attacked by friendly fire. Though it seemed that Zhuqiaomon was acting outside his authority, they never expected to him to have the nerve to actually attack a Digidestined. Though it took them by surprise, it should have been an easy fight. Annalismon's digivolved form should have been enough to take him out. But for some reason Annalismon could not digivolve. It was not until later that she found out that the Digievolution power supply had been warped also. It was now held within one digimon (another one of those unexpected things that the Digiworld did to itself).

The teenaged girl had stood by helplessly as Makuramon stomped all over Annalismon. It was one of the hardest things that she had ever watched. Just as she thought she would see her digimon die before her eyes, Makuramon stopped and laughed, "That should put you in your place. Now to the Digiworld! My master has been dying to see you!" With that, Makuramon took a hold of Annalismon's body and disappeared out of the foggy field that had appeared during his arrival.

The girl looked everywhere for her partner. She scoured Tokyo in all four quadrants, looking for her. And she scoured the Digiworld, but she couldn't find her. Eventually, she had to go home, and face the truth that Annalismon was kidnapped somewhere in the southern quadrant and under the warped mind of Zhuqiaomon.

The girl shook her head. She couldn't think about that now. She had a plane to catch and she did not want to be late. She was headed to Tokyo for a semester as an exchange student. And maybe there among the other digidestined she would be able to find her long lost partner


	2. The Book of Knowledge

**Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon. I just like to play with the characters.**

* * *

Izzy Izumi was doing what he normally did on a Saturday afternoon, scanning the Digital World for disruptions in its field. He had taken to it two years prior when Malomyotismon had managed to mess up its boundaries so badly. He did this for new reason now however. Unfortunately the Digidestined had been unable to open the Digi-ports for about a half-year. No one understood why but one day the Digidestined were planning on returning their digimon to the Digiworld after a gathering, but were unable to do so. It remained the same since. They had been extremely lucky that their digimon had been in the Real World when this happened, otherwise they would have been separated for a long time. There had been a slight disturbance when the ports closed, but nothing had happened in months. For months he had been trying to figure out a way back in.

He continued to type away at his computer and was about to finish up and take a short nap when a map of Tokyo popped up. He had been using it to watch for digital disturbances and phenomena during their last adventure when digimon started entering the real world. He was about to exit out when he noticed something weird. There was a signal of some kind emanating from a park in Shinjuku. He didn't recognize it, but thought it was something to check out.

He sat back down at the computer to try and figure out watch the signal was before he called the others. But, as he started to get to work, a digi-port opened up. This was totally unexpected, and it didn't go to a place that Izzy had ever seen or heard about before. It had never shown up on his map of the Digiworld. It was a place called the Continent of Light.

Suddenly, a voice came out of his computer. "Izzy Izumi," it said, "come to the Digiworld. I have a gift for you to help you on your quest."

Izzy couldn't believe his ears. "Who are you? And what quest are you talking about?" He asked the voice.

"I am a friend to those who serve good. That is all you need to know. Here in my library is a book that will aid you in your quest for knowledge. You will need it to help the Digidestined in the next chapter of their saga."

Izzy was confused. He had no idea what this voice was talking about. He hadn't heard about any danger from Gennai aside from the portals being closed. "I don't know what you're talking about. And how do I know I can trust you?"

"That's right!" Declared Tentomon who was hovering next to Izzy, "I was always taught not to talk to strangers. Especially the ones who talk through computers."

The voice replied, "It is good that you are wary of traps. Your experience in the Digiworld has taught you many things. But, you must trust me so that you can be prepared to fight your next opponent. It will be the strongest you and your friends have ever faced. It is not yet time for you to know everything. You must discover most on your own, but in my library is the start. Even now when the Digiworld seems calm, a dark force is creeping, growing stronger by the minute."

Izzy thought for a moment. If what the voice was saying was true, then it was imperative for him to go. But if it was lying… he shuddered to think of the consequences. "I should call the others. We can go together and maybe leave some behind so that there's backup," he thought.

"Izzy," the voice said, "this gate is very difficult to keep open. If you do not go through within the next minute, I'll be unable to keep it open. You will lose your opportunity."

Izzy had to make a decision, and he had to do it in that instant. He had never considered himself an impulsive person, but this required immediate action. Without thinking twice, he held out his digivice and he and his partner were transported to the Digiworld.

The pair landed head first in a land they had never seen before in all their explorations of the Digital World. It was beautiful, surrounded by white flowers blowing in the breeze, with a large white castle in the distance. Besides the castle, nothing could been seen for kilometers.

Figuring that the castle was the place they needed to go, they began to walk towards it. When they reached the front entrance, the doors mysteriously swung open.

"Izzy I'm not sure if we should be here. I wish that we had the others with us. All of this is just a little too creepy for my taste," Tentomon objected as Izzy was about to go through the front door.

"I know Tentomon, but right now, we don't really have any more options. If this is truly something we need, then we must be the ones to retrieve it. It's time to be brave like Tai and Agumon now."

"Fine," replied the disgruntled digimon.

Izzy and Tentomon entered the palace and looked around. It seemed that it would be Izzy's paradise. There were books everywhere, piles upon piles. The voice had said that one book would be the answer, but Izzy was fairly certain that he could find the answer to just about anything in this place. As he was thinking this, another thought struck him, "Tentomon, how exactly are we supposed to find this book?"

The bug-like digimon was already looking through a particularly high stack of books. "I'm not sure Izzy. Maybe it'll just fall from the sky… Arg!" The digimon plummeted to the ground as an avalanche of books landed on top of him.

Izzy ran over to his friend and tried to help pry him loose. "Tentomon! Are you alright?"

"Oomph! I didn't mean that so literally!"

Izzy laughed as he continued to help dig his friend out of the pile of books. Suddenly, he stopped, a book in his hands. He had stopped, because the book was different than the other books. The second it was in his hands, something weird began to happen. His digivice began to glow, and a purple light (the color of his tag and crest of knowledge) encased his body as well as the book. Izzy took a closer look. Along its spine was a symbol. At closer inspection Izzy realized what it was with a shock. "Hey Tentomon! This has got the symbol for the crest of knowledge on it. Do you think this is the book?"

"I think it is. But, can we focus on more important matters, like preventing me from being crushed by knowledge, literally? Now I know why Davis always complains about school. Books are dangerous!"

Izzy laughed again, put the book in his bag and continued to dig his friend out. When Tentomon was finally free, Izzy sat down to take a look at the book. He was pretty excited to see the contents. But, when he opened it up, he was disappointed to see that the pages were blank. "What? How is this supposed to help at all?" Izzy groaned.

He continued to sit there hopelessly when an idea popped into his head. He held out his digivice and shined it's beam of light on the blank pages. Suddenly the pages came to life with words and drawings. Pleased with his work, Izzy began to read.

"_It was in a time of great peril that the Digidestined were called to the Digiworld in order to save it…"_

Izzy read with a nostalgic sense of fascination about the Digidestined's first trip into the Digital World. The book was very detailed and had excellent illustrations to go along with what was written. However, there were pages everywhere in the book that were randomly blank. And the story ended up being somewhere in the middle encased on either side with many blank pages. Izzy pondered at that phenomenon as he finished the story of their first adventure in the Digital World. However, just as he was finishing, something caught his eye, the last sentence.

"_And with the defeat of Apocalymon the Digiworld was safe from the powers of darkness for the time, and the nine Digidestined went back to their home world for the time being."_

Izzy stopped. "Nine digidestined? There were only eight of us. What is this book talking about? Was there another child in the Digiworld when we were there that we didn't know about?" He pondered for a moment. Then it occurred to him, "I bet this has something to do with what that weird voice was telling me before. I've got to tell the others. We need to find this ninth digidestined."


	3. A New School Year

**Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon. I just like to play the characters.**

* * *

_Beep! Beep!_ A loud noise jolted TK Takashi from his peaceful slumber. He stumbled out of bed, sleepily trying to make sense of up from down. He slowly made his way down to the bathroom, Patamon following, yearning for a hot shower to jolt him awake. He knock to gauge whether it was empty. Finding it to be so he went in and took a what intended to be a long hot shower.

However, his plans were ruined by a knocking at the door 15 minutes in. "TK!" A voice shouted. Jolting to reality, he quickly finished and wrapped a towel around his waist. Opening the door, he saw an impatient looking curly red head. "Thanks, you were taking longer than me, and I'm a girl!" She rushed in and started her daily routine.

TK shook his head. He could not get used to living with a third person in the house (well fourth including Patamon). His mom had thought it would be a great idea to host a foreign exchange student this semester, so a week ago Becky moved into their house. She was nice enough, but had a tendency to keep to herself. Maybe her Izzy-like behavior was caused because the girl was smart. Super smart. She was only a year older than TK, but was two grades above because she had skipped a grade many years back.

45 minutes later TK and Becky were closing the front door to head toward school. TK pulled at the collar of his uniform. He was unaccustomed to wearing it and thought it was uncomfortable. His head also felt naked, and he yearned for the days where he was at Odibah Elementary and he could wear what he wanted. Becky walked beside him wearing a similar outfit with a skirt for girls. The two walked in silence. It wasn't really that Becky couldn't speak Japanese; in fact she was quite fluent. However, she was not the greatest conversationalist. Whenever the two had had a conversation, it always seemed like she was holding back, restraining herself. Honestly, the girl just seemed unhappy. TK wondered if maybe she was homesick.

About half way to school, a voice called from behind, "TK!" TK would recognize that voice anywhere. It was the voice for his best friend Kari Kamia. She ran over to him, her big brother, Tai, close behind. He noticed that his friend looked very good in her new uniform. TK shook his head to rid his mind of such thoughts, smiled and hugged his friends in greeting.

"I was going to go grab some pastries for all of us to eat as celebration for the first day of school. Want to come?" Kari asked.

TK wanted so badly to say yes, but he had promised that he would walk Becky to school and help her get her schedule since she didn't know her way around. "Sorry, but I promised Becky I would show her around."

His friends noticed the addition to their group. "Who's this?" Tai asked.

TK introduced her, "This is the exchange student who is living at my house for the semester."

The girl next to him smiled and bowed, "It is good to meet you…" she trailed off, not knowing their names.

"I'm Tai, and this is my sister Kari. We're good friends with TK. You'll probably be seeing us in the future, especially Kari. How long are you here for?"

"Until December 20."

"Wow that a pretty long time to be away. Are you in the same grade as TK?"

"No, actually I'm two grades above. "

"Really? That's the same as my friend Izzy. Maybe you'll meet him later."

TK gasped. He had been somewhat distracted by this small talk, and hadn't been paying attention to the time. "Becky! We need to get going if we want to make sure you get a chance to see all your classes."

"Wait," Tai said, "that doesn't make any sense. Why don't I just walk her to school? That way you can go with Kari. I mean this is your first year there too. Plus she'll get a chance to meet someone from her own school, beside Matt."

"Actually, she hasn't met Matt yet."

"Really? Even better! I'll be her official guide!" Tai exclaimed. He grabbed Becky's wrist and pulled her away from TK and Kari. "Don't worry! She's in the best of hands!"

TK was about to protest when he felt a gentle touch at his arm. "Coming?" Kari asked.

"Yeah but…"

"Don't worry. You know Tai. He's kinda weird and easily excited, but he's a good guy. He'll be a great guide."

"Ok," TK said. Then the two turned and started walking to the pastry shop.

Tai sighed as the pair walked away. "There it worked!" Becky gave him a confused look. Tai rolled his eyes. "Those two have been in love with each other for who knows how long. They've never done anything about it before though. I have a secret plan to try and get them together. Well, not so secret. Most of our friends are involved. I don't exactly like the idea of my sister dating, but if it had to be someone. I'd rather it be TK. He'll take care of her." Tai stopped, and realized that he had just spilled the beans to a stranger who lived with one of the targets of the plan. "Err… don't say anything to him. I can't have TK think I've gone soft. I'm still Kari's protective older brother. I just want the two of them to get together before Kari does something stupid, like date some jerk who will break her heart."

Becky laughed and started to walk. Tai jogged to catch up with her. "Hey! Do you already know where you're going?"

She smiled and said, "I've only looked at a map of this area about a thousand times to make sure I don't get lost. I've got a decent idea where I'm going." She turned to face Tai. "I know that you probably have friends that you were planning to meet with before I came along. Go ahead and meet them. I can find my way there on my own." She continued to walk forward.

"What? I don't mind."

"No really, it's ok." Becky continued to walk faster.

"Wait…"

"Tai! Hey we're back here!"

Tai turned around to see Matt and Sora running toward him. "Hey guys! I want you to meet…" Tai looked around but couldn't find Becky anywhere. He thought that maybe she had probably disappeared down an alley to the right that was a short cut to the school that he and his friends often used. Deciding that the girl must have wanted to walk by herself, Tai waited for the rest of his friends to show up. It wasn't until he got to school that he realized that it would have impossible for Becky to know they shortcut. It wasn't on any map because it was all alleys and back walks.

* * *

Izzy sighed as he looked at the clock in his biology. There was one more period left in the school day, and he was antsy for it to be over. He generally didn't mind school. Yes, the content they taught was so easy it was mind numbingly boring but normally it was fine. However, there was a meeting with all the Digidestined after school where he would present all of his findings from the past few days. He took a look into his book bag to make sure that the book that he had found in the Digiworld was still there.

The voice of his teacher calling order to the class jolted him from his thoughts. "Class," the teacher said, "this is a new student, Rebecca. She is an exchange student from America and will be spending the semester with us." A red haired girl stood blushing in front of the class. "Rebecca, why don't you go and sit next to that red haired boy in the middle." Izzy moved his things to make sure there was room at his table. He hoped that this girl was fairly fluent in Japanese. Since they were sharing a table, they would be lab partners for the rest of the semester.

"Hi," the girl said, "I'm Becky. It's nice to meet you!"

"I'm Izzy. Nice to meet you too."

At the mention of his name Becky seemed to give him a strange look. Confused, Izzy asked, "Is something wrong?"

"Oh no," she laughed, "Sorry, sometimes I tend to zone out. Do you by chance know TK Takashi?"

"Yes, why?"

"This is kinda weird, but I'm living at his house for the semester. I've heard him talk about you before."

"About what?" Izzy was nervous, hoping that she hadn't overheard something about the Digiworld.

"Oh nothing, he just said that you were one of his friends and friends with his older brother."

"Oh… well we better get started on dissolving this starch in water. It'll take most of the period to heat up the mixture once we add the iodine."

Becky nodded and they started to work on their experiment and didn't say much else non-biology related for the rest of the period.

Cody sat somewhat anxiously for the rest of the group to the playground. Being the youngest, he was the only one still in elementary school, so he was closest to the designated meeting point. It was going to take a while before everyone was there because all the Digidestined from both his group and the older group were coming. Even Mimi was coming via Skype.

He really wanted to hear what Izzy had to say. He had sent two messages and they both sounded urgent, especially coming out of the blue like they did. He also had said there were many things that he needed to discuss with them at length, including access to the Digiworld. Cody hoped he had found a way in. Armadillomon was really starting to loose his luster. If he was away from the Digiworld much longer, he would de-digivolve in to Upamon. He waited a few minutes and soon the others started arriving at the park. Finally, they were only waiting on Davis. Izzy, getting annoyed got ready to start when a voice cried, "Wait! Sorry I'm late! I got held up at school for trying to kick my soccer ball down the hallway."

* * *

Cody laughed. That was such a Davis sort of thing to do. Yolei started yelling from beside him, "Davis! You're in High School now! You aren't supposed to do all those childish things anymore! Izzy has something important to tell us, and you take forever to get here. Ken was even here before you, and he doesn't even live in this part of the city."

The whole group laughed as the pair started to bicker. The two had always fought, and now that Yolei and Ken had started dating, it had gotten worse. Cody thought that it probably was because Davis was jealous that Ken would come and visit someone else in Odibah more than him now.

Once the fight calmed down, Izzy cleared his throat. "I've asked all of you here because there were some major developments that happened. Yesterday, Tentomon and I went to the Digiworld."

Chaos immediately spread across the group as they clamored to make themselves heard. Above all the clamor everyone could hear Yolei shouting outraged, "Izzy! Why did you go by yourself? Why didn't you call us so we could all come along?"

"Yolei," Cody replied, "I'm sure that Izzy has a good reason for not taking us. Maybe if we listen to what he has to say. He'll explain."

"Yeah Izzy," Tai said, "Please go on."

"Thanks guys. Anyways, I had been scanning the Digi-world for disturbances and open ports…"

"Where he found one apparently," Davis whispered.

"Actually, I didn't find anything at all. Nothing had changed. Then for some reason, I had accidentally pulled up the map of Tokyo that I had used to monitor the city during MaloMyotismon's last attack. I noticed a strange disturbance on the map, which I had never seen before. That is why I sent the first email. I think we should make sure to check out whatever that disturbance is. It's in a park in the Shinjuku district."

"We should definitely check that out." Ken said solemnly. "Please continue Izzy."

"Anyways, I was just about to close the programs when a mysterious voice started speaking to me through the computer. It said that it had opened a portal to the Digital World for me, and that I must go through. Tentomon and I of course expressed doubts about taking this voice up on her offer, but I finally decided to do it, because she mentioned something about a new prophesy. I had wanted to call you guys, but the portal wasn't going to be open much longer, only a couple of minutes. Tentomon and I went through, and found ourselves at this mysterious place called the Continent of Light. There was a castle there that had a gigantic library. The voice had told us to find a book, so we began to search the library. After some searching we found this." Izzy pulled out the book he had found in the library.

"If you look at it, you'll notice that it has the crest of knowledge on it. If you flip through it is seemingly blank. That is what I noticed when I found it, but when I tried shining my Digivice on it, like so." Izzy took his Digivice out and directed it's light at the book. "Words and pictures began to show up on the pages." Sora who was holding the book gasped as pages came to life with words and beautiful illustrations. "I read through the book which is the contents of our adventures in the Digital World. The book is extremely accurate and detailed. Everything was correct except for one sentence at the end of our first adventure. It said, ' _And with the defeat of Apocalymon the Digiworld's was safe from the powers of darkness for the time, and the nine Digidestined went back to their home world for the time being.' _Tentomon and I came back and that pretty much brings us up to the present."

"So, according to this book, thing, there were nine Digidestined in the Digiworld when we were there?" Matt asked.

"Yes, part of me is wondering if it is just a mistake, but that voice said that the book would have vital information concerning a prophesy about us Digidestined. I think that this ninth Digidestined may be key."

"Really?!" Tai exclaimed, "This is going to be like searching for Kari all over again!"

"Seriously Tai, why are you being such a Debi Downer?" Davis asked, "This is nothing like that. There isn't crazy evil Digimon chasing after us."

"At least that we know of," Matt sighed, "Myotismon was already getting ready to find Kari before we even knew about him."

Sora smiled, "I think we can at least find peace in the fact that he or she already has her Digimon protecting her."

"Yeah, and if she was in the Digiworld while the Dark Masters were there then he or she probably has some pretty good fighting experience." Joe commented.

"I'm still concerned about that distortion Izzy was talking about in Shinjuku. I don't think it is a good sign if another prophesy is coming to pass. Especially if we need to be worried about a villain looking for the ninth Digidestined. It could be a Digimon trying to come to the Real World to get her." Ken said concerned.

"Yeah," said TK, "I think we should check that out as soon as possible, otherwise we might end up being too late. We almost were the first time."

"But what about looking for the ninth Digidestined?!" Davis asked.

"No worries Davis," Joe said, "I think what Ken and TK are getting at is that we should check out the disturbance first, and then go looking for the ninth digidestined."

"I think that's a good plan," Izzy replied, "What do you guys think?"

The group nodded their heads. "Great!" Tai exclaimed, "Let's plan to meet on Sunday at the train station. Tell your parents that you're going on a shopping trip or something. In the meantime we'll start asking our other Digidestined friends if they have any ideas who this ninth Digidestined is."

The group agreed on that plan, and Mimi shed some tears about not being able to come along. Slowly everyone started to scatter off. Normally Cody would walk back with TK and Yolei, but Yolei had a date night with Ken and TK was walking Kari back with Tai. He sighed. He hated lying to his family about things. The meeting Sunday would force him to miss kendo, but this was too important. Generally his grandfather was pretty good about reading him and knowing when he had an important mission and not to interfere.

Suddenly, something caught his eye. He thought that he saw something big move from a tree close to where the group had been. He paused for a second and saw nothing. After scanning the area for a few seconds, he turned around to go. Cody shook his head. 'All this talk about sneaky evil Digimon must be making me hear things,' he thought.


	4. Zhuqiaomon's New Servant

**Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon. I just like to play with the characters.**

* * *

Takato Matsuki sat on the ground running his hands through his hair. He was trying to teach Guilmon how to play the card game War. However, he was failing quite miserably, as Guilmon seemed more interested in the pictures of fish on the back of the cards than actually playing the game. "Takatomon, is this a Seadramon that lost it's helmet?" Guilmon asked pointing at to a picture of an eel.

"Not quite Guilmon. That's an eel. I think we would be better off visiting an aquarium at this rate. Although, I don't know if I'd be able to handle you asking me questions like this. If we went, you'd probably think that the seals were gray Gomomon."

"Takato, are you angry with me?"

"No Guilmon, I'm just frustrated. That's all. Sometimes it's easy for me to forget that you haven't been around for a very long time, so you don't necessarily know everything."

"Sorry Takato," Guilmon said sadly.

"No, don't be sorry, it's my fault."

"What's your fault this time?" A voice asked sarcastically from behind Takato.

Takato turned around to see Henry and the owner of the sarcastic voice, Terriermon. They met here at Guilmon's hideout everyday after school, just as they had done before they went to the Digital World. "Hey guys! What are you doing?" Henry asked.

"Well I was trying to teach Guilmon how to play War, but he keeps asking if the whales on the back are Whamon."

Terriermon and Henry began to laugh. "Oh Guilmon, you always make me laugh!"

Suddenly a voice called from behind Henry and Terriermon. "Henwy! Tewiermon! Wait for me!"

Henry laughed sheepishly, "Sorry, I hope you don't mind that I brought a guest. Dad needed me to babysit Suzie today. I thought she and Lopmon might like to come along."

"That's ok!" Takato replied.

Lopmon stepped cautiously over to where Terriermon and Guilmon were starting a handstand competition. "Lopmon! Want to join?" Guilmon asked playfully.

"I don't know… It seems a little childish."

"Seriously?!" exclaimed Terriermon, "You play Princess Pretty Pants with Suzie everyday, and a handstand competition seems childish to you? Now that's just plain stupid."

"Terriermon!" Henry shouted.

"What? It's the truth!" Terriermon retorted.

"It's alright. Terriermon is just jealous that I look better in a dress than he does," Lopmon replied.

Takato laughed. "Hey! Do you know if everyone is still coming?" He asked.

Henry replied, "Well I heard from Rika that she'll be here, she has to finish shopping with her mom first. I sent an email to Ryo, and I think he should be here, unless he's run off to the Digiworld without telling us. What about Kazu, Kenta, and Jeri?"

"They're all coming. They should just be a few more minutes."

* * *

Kazu, Kenta, and Jeri along with their partners and Calumon were almost there. They had just entered the park and were walking to Guilmon's hiding place. As they walked, they passed an area of dense vegetation. A crunching noise came from the thicket. "What was that?" Kenta asked, "Did you hear that?"

"Yeah! I did," Kazu replied, "I wonder what it was. Do you think it's an evil digimon trying to attack us?"

"Really? You guys are being such boys. I imagine it's just a couple that wants some privacy."

"But what if it isn't? We need to be prepared to attack. Maybe one of us should scout it out!" Kenta said.

"Well, it's not going to be me," Kazu exclaimed. "I did it the last time, and I got slammed all over the place by that old woman. I swear she had bricks in her purse. You should have seen what she tried to do to Guardromon!" The robotic digimon shuddered with his partner to add dramatic emphasis.

"Well I'm not doing it. My mom flipped when I came home with a bloody noise when we mistaked that Doberman with a Dobermon." Kenta replied.

"Gosh you boys are so silly. If it worries you so much, I'll go check."

"But Jeri, you don't have a partner." Kenta gasped.

"Kenta, I survived inside the D-Reaper. I think I can handle this. Even if Leomon is…" Tears started to well up in her eyes, but she shook her head. It was time to move on and be brave. She had done enough crying over the past few months. She stepped into the brush, and as stealthily as possible, moved toward the rustling sounds.

As she went deeper, she heard familiar voices. "Seriously Ryo, what is your problem? You've barely said a word all day. My grandma thought she burned her cooking because you wouldn't touch it. And every time I ask what's wrong, Cyberdramon keeps baring his teeth at me, like I'm his ultimate enemy. We're trying this whole friends thing, and honestly, I've been plenty honest with you, especially about my dad. Tell me. Or are you just sick of me like every other guy I've ever known, including my dad?"

"Rika, no, its not that. It's just I've been having some nightmares, that's all."

"Well then tell me about them."

Jeri decided to turn back. For some reason Rika and Ryo had gotten close since the D-reaper incident. They seemed to understand each other better than any of the others understood them. Almost like Takato understood her. She actually secretly thought the two would make a cute couple, so she decided to give them some time alone. When she got back to Kazu and Kenta she lied, "Geez guys, it was just a bunny. Come on, let's get to the others."

"A bunny?! Gosh dang it! Nothing exciting happens now that the D-Reaper is gone." Kazu steamed as he followed the others.

* * *

Back in the brush, Rika and Ryo were still having their discussion. "Rika, its fine. They're just dreams. You wouldn't want to hear about them. Anyways, shouldn't we get to the others?"

"Stop trying to change the subject Ryo. It's obvious that they are bothering you, so they must be significant. I mean Cyberdramon is one tough mon, and he's even being all sentimental about your bad dreams. It'd have to be pretty bad to make him sympathize with you."

"Rika I… I don't know what you're talking about"

"Can it Ryo. I don't put up with this mystery crap. I don't really want your friend if you're going to keep it going. I've had enough. I've been more than transparent with you, and you don't reciprocate!"

"Rika… stop, please"

"No Ryo I will not stop."

The two began an intense staring contest. Neither side refused to back down until...

"Fine Rika, but you've got to understand, my past is complicated. More complicated than you can understand, more complicated than I can understand. In fact, the vast majority of it I can't remember. But, I think that these nightmares I'm having are memories that have been repressed for some reason."

"What do you mean Ryo?"

"Well, one day about 3 years ago, I woke up in a hospital bed and didn't know where I was. No one knew where I came from, just that I turned up unconscious in a park with some kind of yellow and purple egg. Apparently someone stole the egg though, because it mysteriously disappeared from my room while I was still unconscious. My father isn't my real father. He's my foster parent, and he doesn't really like me all that much right now. He'll probably never forgive me now for disappearing for a year, coming back, and doing it again. To him I'm just some troubled foster kid."

"Wow Ryo, I never knew."

"Yeah, after I got out of the hospital and moved in with my foster dad, I started a routine. For some reason I was a natural at that card game. I always seemed to know exactly what I needed to do to beat a card. Like I had done it before. I spent all my time doing that game. It was like an obsession. The only time I would interact with people instead of cards or a computer was when I was playing them or having dinner with Dad."

"Then after I defeated you, when I was walking home, I got caught in a digital field. Cyberdramon appeared and said that he wanted me as his tamer so that he could digivolve to get stronger. And I did it. I left for the Digital World and left my half-life here behind because I couldn't stand it any longer. I felt empty and alone. At least in the Digiworld I had Cyberdramon. In fact, being with him I felt better than I could ever remember."

"What about the nightmares? Tell me about them."

"Ok well when in some of them I'm a lot younger, around 10 years old…"

Just as he was about to start there was a gigantic crash from above them.

"_Treasure Axes!"_ A gigantic bunny landed in front of them.

"Antylamon! What are you doing?" Rika shouted as she and Ryo jumped out of the way of the attack. Renamon and Cyberdramon jumped into action to protect their partners. "Wait! We don't want to attack one of our friends!" Rika shouted.

"That's not one of our friends. It may look like our friend Antylamon, but that is a virus form of her species." Ryo said, looking at his D-arc's screen.

"I have a message from the most high sovereign, Zhuqiaomon. He is tired of sitting around and watching you treat your digimon like pets. They are great creatures, not your servants. I have come to liberate them from you, even if I must force them by loading their data."

"I thought Zhuqiaomon was done fighting us. We helped him beat the D-Reaper!" Rika said.

"Well, I guess he changed his mind. Cyberdramon! Attack!"

"_Desolation Claw!"_

As if dancing, the rabbit dodged the attack. She was fast.

"Renamon, it's time to Digivolve. Digimodify! Matrix Digievolution activate!"

A light appeared and Taomon stood in the place of Renamon. The rabbit just snorted and did a fancy flip before puching Taomon straight in the face. The shaman digimon flew backward into Cyberdramon and sent the two crashing to the ground.

Rika and Ryo gaped. They had never seen their digimon taken down so easily. That rabbit was too fast and nimble, though she didn't look it. And she was powerful, very powerful. Their partners got up and started fighting again, but Antylamon was just running them through their paces. The two tried card after card, but none of them worked. Nothing short of years of training could help them defeat this digimon.

Hearing the commotion, the others ran and found the fight. "Yeah Jeri, it was just a harmless bunny!" Kazu shouted when he saw the battle.

Takato, Henry, and Kenta, more focused on the battle at hand, pulled out their cards. Takato and Henry started the Digievolution process and MarineAngemon went over to Cyberdramon and Taomon to shoot his heart shaped waves to help heal his friends. As the digievolution light faded from both Guilmon and Terriermon, their forms were replaced by WarGrowlmon and Rapidmon. The pair ran in and started to help their friends fight.

"What pleasure my master will have when you are all under his wing. He needs more powerful digimon like you. Unfortunately for your humans, you are not powerful enough. You are too young to be. Prepare to say goodbye to your partners."

Growling, WarGrowlmon went in to attack. The rabbit laughed again and with a quick and powerful jump she seemingly turned invisible until she appeared a second later on WarGrowlmon's head "_Treasure Axes," _she yelled and proceeded to hack away at the dinosaur.

"What is going on?" Lopmon asked, surprised to see the virus type of her ultimate form.

"It's your buddy Zhuqiaomon. He's sent this to come attack us. Know anything about it?"

"There was a Lopmon that Zhuqiaomon was jailing for crimes she committed. Maybe he had her digivolve and sent her to do this job in return?"

"Any idea why she is so strong?"

"I'm not really sure." Suddenly she noticed something odd, a black spiral that was wrapped around the enemy's arm. Antylamon did not normally have that band, even the viruses. "Hmm… I'm not sure why she is so strong, but I can tell you that the band that she is wearing is something Zhuqiaomon was trying to develop. He said it would be a way for digimon to fight in the Real World better. I'll bet that if we destroy that spiral, it will make her easier to defeat."

The group redoubled its attack, this time aiming for the rabbit's left arm.

"What are you fools doing now. There is no way to defeat me. You may as well just surrender n…"

As Antylamon was gloating, Rapidmon hit her arm with a rapid missile. The spiral disintegrated.

Just as the group was getting ready to release their final attack to delete Antylamon's data, a light shone around her. She quickly began to shrink until the light faded and a bruised Lopmon was all that was left. She began to scream. "Make it stop! Make it stop! I want to go home! Get out of my brain." Then the tortured digimon passed out on the ground.

"Well what should we do now?" Asked Rapidmon.

"We leave her be," Rika replied, "it's obvious that she was being controlled using that black spiral thing. Something is wrong with her and she needs our help."

"Rika, do you really think that's a good idea?" Ryo asked.

"I've never been more sure in my life," she replied.

"I'll take her home. Dad might be able to do something to help her," Henry said.

"Put this on her," Takato said taking off one of his sweatbands, "you guys already get Terriermon and Lopmon confused. I can't think what it would be like having another Lopmon around."

"Sure, the whole unconscious thing doesn't give it away or anything," Kenta snorted.

The group rolled their eyes at his comment and started walking down the path. A light encompassed WarGrowlmon, Taomon, and Rapidmon and they were replaced by their rookie forms who ran to catch up with the group. "Takato, all this fighting has made me hungry. Can we have that picnic now?" Guilmon moaned.

"Sure buddy," Takato replied with a smile.

* * *

The Antylamon business had happened on Wednesday, and it was quickly becoming apparent to Henry that Lopmon would delete if they didn't do something quickly. It was now Sunday and she hadn't woken from her coma. In face, she had been mostly silent save a whimper she let out here and there. He felt bad for the digimon whether she was a criminal or not. Zhuqiaomon had obviously done something awful to her. His dad was going to get the results from testing her yesterday in just a few minutes, and Henry waited for what he assumed was going to be bad news. His dad came into the room holding some papers. "I've got some bad news, some good news, and some bad news son."

"Well?"

"Well, this digimon is losing energy at massive levels. That thing that you guys destroyed must have been supplying her with energy. However, I think that if she returns to the Digital World her energy levels will stabilize, but as you know that is no easy feat. I don't want to loose my kids there again."

"So what, we just let her die? No, we'll find some way."

"Henry no, it's not worth it. Didn't she attack you anyways?"

"She was obviously forced to do that. Dad, look at her. She is in so much pain. There is something wrong with her. You didn't hear her scream as she passed out. You don't understand." Henry stormed out carrying Lopmon and grabbed Suzie by the arm. The two went out the door and were followed by their partners

Outside, Henry used his cell phone where he called all the other Tamers with the news, telling them to meet at the park to figure out a plan.


	5. Where Worlds Collide

The Digidestined stood outside of the park in Shinjuku. Izzy had his laptop open, trying to pinpoint the area where the disturbance was coming from. "If we walk about 10 meters to the left, and forward about 200 meters, we'll be at the point of disturbance," Izzy said. The group followed his directions.

"Ok, so now what do we do?" Asked Davis.

"The only way to know is to cross it, but that might be very dan… Davis! What are you doing," Izzy shouted as Davis crossed the line of disturbance, "I was just saying that it might be dangerous!"

"Seems fine to me. Nothing happened."

"Hmm… strange. I can't see anything that would be causing the disturbance either."

"What if it's buried?" Cody asked.

"I suppose that's possible but… what?"

Davis had pulled out his D3 and was playing with a few buttons. Suddenly, a light shone out of it and it seemed to spread out along the line of disturbance. It seemed like a wall reaching from the ground up to the sky. When the light faded, Davis was gone.

"Davis!" Veemon shouted, "What happened to him?"

"I wonder," Izzy said. He took out his Digivice and did the same as Davis. A wall of light appeared, just like Davis' had. "Prodigious!" Izzy shouted. He then walked forward and disappeared behind the wall with Tentomon close behind.

The others looked at each other and shrugged. "Well, I guess we know what we have to do," Tai said. The group took out their digivices and passed through the wall.

On the other side, they looked around. "This looks different from the Shinjuku I know," said Sora. "We would always come to this park for tennis tournaments. I never remember seeing those two sky scrapers." She pointed toward two towering, somewhat ominous buildings that dominated the area's skyline.

"Yeah, I don't remember those when we came here to play soccer either," Tai said. "What do you think is going on Izzy?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but I think we may have crossed into a reality that is alternate to our own."

"Do you think we can get back?" Cody asked.

"There's a disturbance on this side too, and as long as it keeps up, we should be able to get back."

"I think we should go back now before we get stuck here," Yolei said.

"What are you talking about? We should explore!" Davis countered

"You know, I actually think I agree with Davis on this one," TK added, "The 9th digidestined might be here somewhere. We should look for them."

The group put it to a vote and decided to explore for a while. A loud grumbling came from Tai's stomach. "Well, I guess we know where to start. Let's get something to eat," he said scratching his head embarrassedly. "I hope they take yen here."

Luckily, the dimension did accept yen, and soon everyone had a stomach full of noodles. The group then decided to go back and scout out the park.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the two towers that Sora had previously pointed out, two young women sat in mechanical chairs high above the ground, looking at a massive screen. "Yamaki!" Called the red haired woman.

"Yeah Riley?" A blond haired man answered.

"There's a strange signal coming from Shinjuku Park. It's like nothing I've ever seen before!"

Yamaki took off his sunglasses. "Hmm… it is strange. I wonder…" He pulled out a laptop and went through some old records. "Just as I thought. I've seen this signal three times before. Very strange. Tally, I need you to contact Ryo Akiyama."

"Why Ryo?" Riley asked.

"After the boy came back to the Real World, I did some digging into his past. There are no records of him prior to 4 years ago. The date of the first strange disturbance came when he first appeared on record. He was found unconscious in an alleyway and admitted to the hospital."

"Do you think he has something to do with this?"

"I'm starting to think that there is more to him than we know, and if we want answers, he's where we start."

* * *

The Tamers gathered around outside of Guilmon's hiding spot. "So, we need to get back to the Digital World," Takato mused, "I wonder how we'll do it this time."

"Yeah, portals have been few and far between since the D-Reaper attacked. We're lucky to have our digimon back as it is," said Rika.

"Come on guys! With me and Guardromon with you guys there's no way we won't succeed," Kazu interrupted.

"That's right, I will get us to the Digital World." Guardromon added.

"Shut-up, I'm going to get us there. You'll be my back-up."

"Will both of you morons shut-up? We're trying to think and neither one of you is helping by blabbing away. In fact, you'll probably get us caught." Rika seethed. She could not believe that Kazu ever became a Tamer. It just didn't make sense, and it was quickly becoming the bane of her existence. She looked over at Ryo. She never understood how Hero Boy ever managed to stand Kazu and Kenta fawning over him. She spent 5 minutes with Kazu and she wanted to kill them.

"Well, the Digital World is data. So, could we make a program to open a portal on the computer?" Takato asked. He looked out at Guilmon running around with Terriermon and Calumon. He felt bad for the hurt Lopmon. He wondered if she would ever be able to be as happy as them, especially after all the trauma she had experienced.

"It's possible," Henry replied, "But I don't think any of us have the knowledge to program something so complex. We don't even understand the makeup of digimon. How could we possibly understand a dimensional boundary?"

"It's times like these that I wish the Digimon cartoon was real," Kenta said, "Think about if they were here to help us. They could just walk up to a computer and make a Digi-port open."

"Good plan bird brain, get fictitious characters to help us." Rika retorted.

"I was just saying it would be really cool!" Kenta said storming off with Kazu to play a round of Digimon.

Suddenly Renamon appeared. "Rika, I sense something. Digimon I think, but they feel unfamiliar, the same way that Lopmon feels unfamiliar."

"Do you think that Zhuqiaomon is sending more servants to take us out?" Henry asked.

"I'm not sure, but I think we should scout it out." Renamon replied.

"Should we tell the guys?" Takato asked.

"Nah, they'll just make a lot of noise," Ryo said, "Why don't Rika, Renamon, Henry, and Terriermon go? They should attract the least amount of attention. That is as long as Terriermon keeps his mouth shut."

"Moumantai, I may be witty, but I do have a brain, unlike those guys," Terriermon said pointing at Kazu and Kenta.

"Ok, let's get going," Rika said. She stretched mentally readying herself for battle. Zhuqiaomon wasn't going to take Renamon from her that easily.

* * *

"Guys! I think those were the best noodles I've ever had! I need to get their recipe for when I start my noodle cart!" Davis said as the Digidestined walked through the park after their meal.

"Yeah, I could tell, " Kari said. "The only person who ate more than you was Veemon." She was trying to make light the situation they were currently in, but it was difficult. This quest reminded her too much of when Myotismon tried to kill her. As hard as she tried, the scars from that incident still haunted her to this day. She hoped that they found this ninth Digidestined before an evil digimon did. She didn't want anyone to have to experience what she had.

"Kari, I think I hear something," Gatomon said, "in those trees."

"It could be some people trying to hide," Kari replied.

"Yeah, but they're trying too hard to be sneaky. If people were in there, you should be able to hear them, but only these purrrr-fect ears can hear it."

"Hmm… Do you think it's worth checking out?"

"Maybe. This whole prophesy thing has me freaked."

"Well, there's no harm in checking it out."

"Right, I'll be back in a few minutes."

Gatomon nimbly jumped into the trees. Kari stopped to wait for her partner. She called to the others, "Guys wait for a second. Gatomon is checking something out."

The group stopped and waited. Everything was silent until…

"_Diamond Storm!"_

"_Terrier Tornado!"_

"_Lightning Paw!"_

Gatomon emerged from the trees with two digimon hot on her tail. The group recognized one as a Terriermon but didn't know the second.

"Izzy! What is that?" Tai asked.

"Give me a second… Ok, we already know the small one is a Terriermon, but the fox one is a Renamon. Both are rookie level."

"Why are they attacking her?" Kari asked.

"Now guys, there's no reason to fight! I only wanted to see what was making that noise." Gatomon said.

"Yeah right," Terriermon said, "more like you were only trying to see who made the noise before you attacked. Try this on for size kitty! _Bunny Blast!"_

"Oh my gosh this is getting old! _Cat's Eye Hypnotism!"_ Beams came out of Gatomons eyes, and Terriermon fell into a trance-like state. "There that should teach you some… umph!"

The Renamon hit Gatomon with a fast kick. The cat fell to the ground, surprised by the force of the attack, but relatively unharmed. However, the move scared Kari, who ran into the battle field, crying, "Gatomon!"

Renamon, who was in the air, preparing to send an attack at her opponent stopped short. "What?" She asked. She landed beside the pair, Gatomon standing protectively in front of Kari. "Are you a Tamer?" Renamon asked.

"What's a Tamer?" Kari responded.

"I mean is that digimon your partner?"

"Well yeah! I'm a Digidestined; of course she's my partner. I wouldn't be a Digidestined otherwise."

"Digidestined… Why does that name sound familiar?"

Terriermon started coming to. "Renamon! What are you waiting for? Finish her off before Zhuqiaomon tries to beat us into a pulp again!" He ran over to attack.

"Terriermon stop. This digimon, she has a partner."

"What? That girl is her Tamer?"

"She said she was a Digidestined."

"That thing that's on the TV show Henry's brother likes to watch?"

"So that's where I've heard of it."

"What are they talking about?" Yolei whispered to Cody.

"You got me." He replied.

"Hey! Leave my sister alone!"

"Yeah leave her alone!" Tai and TK came running over to Kari and Gatomon. Patamon and Agumon joined Gatomon in their protective stance in front of their partners.

"Stop. We have no intention of harming you, as long as you have no intention of harming us." Renamon said.

"Yeah, then why were you so excited to start a fight with Gatomon?" Agumon demanded.

"We thought she was one of Zhuqiaomon's servants who wanted to smash us into oblivion!" Terriermon answered.

"If you follow us we'll take you to our partners. You can see that we are not your enemies." Renamon placated.

However, there was no need for them to move, because at that very moment, Rika came crashing through the trees. "Renamon! Where are you? What's going on?"

"Rika, I'm right here."

"There you are. Did you defeat that di…" She stopped short when she saw the scene in front of her.

"No, the girl is Gatomon's partner. I thought they may be allies."

"You guys look a whole lot like…"

"The girl said that they are Digidestined."

Rika gasped, "They are! Henry, get down here! It looks like Kenta's plan might work after all."

"Rika, what are you taking about?" Henry said as he emerged from the trees. He continued walking forward, not paying attention where he was walking. "Don't tell me you think that the Digidestined are going to appear and get us into the Digital World. They're not real, they're TV charact…"

"Umm... Hi?" Matt said as Henry ran into him.

Henry looked shocked and almost fainted. "But, but you're not supposed to be real!"

"Well Henry, I guess you were wrong. They're standing here looking pretty darn real to me," Terriermon said.

"Any idea what this kid is talking about?" Sora asked Biyomon.

"Not a clue Sora."

* * *

After accepting that in fact the Digidestined were real, the Tamers insisted on taking them to Guilmon's hideout to meet the others. The Digidestined followed, hoping that these strange people would have some clue to who the ninth Digidestined was. Izzy pushed his way to the front to talk to Henry. "So, you guys have Digimon. Do you have digivices?"

"Sure, but they're different they yours. Here let me show you." Henry pulled out his D-Power.

"Prodigious! I've never seen anything like this before! Can I take a look at it?"

Henry laughed, "You act exactly like in the TV show!"

Izzy gave him a strange look, "You guys keep talking about us, saying we're TV characters."

"Well you are. Don't you know that?"

"See the thing is, I don't think we're from this dimension of the Real World. We came here in the first place to explore a strange distortion in the park. We found it on our side and used out Digivices to cross to this side."

"Huh… different dimensions. I haven't really thought much about that besides the Digital World."

"Yes, our group has had experience with several other dimensions before. So, how exactly does this device work?"

"Umm… well it does help our digimon digivolve, like yours, but it does a lot more. See it identifies digimon and gives us data on them." He pointed his D-Power at Tentomon and his data came up. "We can also swipe modify cards to give our digimon more power or to help them digivolve. They also show signs of hostile digimon activity in the Real World."

"Wow, I've never seen anything like it! What are modify cards?"

"Remember I said, there's a TV show about you guys? Well there's also a card game based on Digimon. Modify cards are used in the game. When a Tamer gets their D-Power, they can use the modify cards like they would in the game."

"That is seriously cool! I wish we could use cards too. A little extra power wouldn't have hurt in a few battles."

"Izzy! I'm hurt! Am I not good enough for you?" Tentomon exclaimed.

"No Tentomon. You are perfect the way you are, but you have to admit there were a few battles that a little speed or power may have kept you from getting beat up."

"That is true. I still have nightmares about getting beat up by Diaboromon."

"So, I heard you and that red headed girl, were talking about how you guys need help. What seems to be the problem?" Rika sniffed at this, distrusting the know-it-all, and hoping that Henry wouldn't give away all their secrets

"Actually, we do need help. When we get to our friends, you will see that we have a very sick Lopmon with us. A few days ago, she attacked us in the form of the virus Antylamon. However, we discovered that a dark spiral was controlling her. When we destroyed the spiral, she de-digivoled but was in extreme pain. She eventually passed out. That was almost 4 days ago, and she has only gotten progressively worse. She seems to be running out of energy and needs to get back to the Digital World."

"Hmm… I see. We have found that it is difficult for digimon to exist in the Real World without a human partner for more than a few days. They progressively lose power. I'm not sure how much help we will be though."

"Well, just wait until we get there before you make any judgments. The experience and knowledge that you guys have about the Digiworld may come in handy."

* * *

During Rika and Henry's disappearance, Kazu and Kenta noticed their absence. Ryo had managed to keep his mouth shut about the scouting mission, but under Kazu's persuasion Takato spilled the beans and was now doing all he could do to keep the two of them at the hideout.

"Takato, they'll need us for back up!" Kazu shouted furiously.

"Guys, they're on a scouting mission, the whole point is to be sneaky." Takato replied.

"You boys are so silly. Fighting over this, when they're already coming back! Look there they are. Oh! And they brought friends!"

Takato looked over at the group coming up the stairs. "Umm… Jeri, those are more than just friends. Those, are Digidestined."

"Wait, what?"

"Digidestined, duh, like from the TV show." Kazu replied. "How can you not know that? You were a Tamer!"

"Kazu, you don't have to watch the TV show to be a Tamer." Takato said as he shook his head.

"Well I can't wait until I see the look on Rika's face when she gets here, and it is my plan that actually worked." Kenta stated smugly.

"We'll see if it works Kenta. We'll see." Ryo replied seeming to be lost in thought.

* * *

Thus, the Digidestined and the Tamers met one another by what seemed to be a total coincidence. Izzy and Joe started looking at the hurt Lopmon, and Davis started annoying Rika. Kazu and Kenta fawned over Tai and Sora. As all of this was happening, Renamon stood off to the side. Ryo, not as enthused about their new friends as the rest, though for reasons he couldn't understand at the moment, stood by her. "What's up Renamon? I'm sure that Veemon would annoy you just as much as Davis does Rika. I imagine no one would even begrudge you a few punches if you went over."

"Something is wrong Ryo. I sense that there is still something else. Something that is watching us from nearby. I can't see it though."

"We should be fine with all these Digimon around. I think strength in numbers may apply here."

"You may be right, everything has me on guard right now."

"Tell you what, you go and join the others and take a few swipes at Veemon for me, and Cyberdramon and I will stay over here and keep watch."

"Okay Ryo, but watch carefully. Whatever is here, I've never sensed anything like it before."

In the hideout, Takato stood with Rika and Henry, along with Joe, TK, Kari, Matt, Davis, and Tai. Izzy was behind them, looking over Lopmon, running scans on his computer.

"You were right Henry," Izzy started, "this digimon needs to go back to the Digital World soon. Do you guys have any way to open a portal?"

Takato replied, "No, but you guys can, can't you?"

"That's where we may have a problem," TK responded, "we haven't been able to open a Digi-port for a half year."

"TA, what are you talking about? Izzy just went to the Digiworld last weekend."

"Davis, he didn't just say digi-port open and go. It was opened by a powerful force that we don't even know about." Kari countered.

"But we did it once, so now we should be able to do it again. Izzy give me that computer." Davis persisted.

"Now Davis, we need to be more careful than that," TK said. "We don't know what's going on. It could be dangerous."

"TK is right Davis," Matt continued. "You need to think about the safety of this group. We don't know what dimension we're in and if the D3s or where they will take us. That is, if they even work."

"That's right, I need to check out the Digi-port program and see how it is reacting. Then I need to run some diagnostics and see how the port is reacting to a D3. That is of course, assuming that the port can be opened at all. Hopefully we won't have problems like we've been having in our world. Give me a few minutes."

Waiting for Izzy's verdict the Tamers and Digidestined chatted for a while. "Guys I don't get it. Why are we waiting for Izzy to do his computer genius stuff?" Davis said, pouting.

"Oh my gosh you are the worst goggle head ever!" Rika shouted, frustrated. "Did you not listen to anything that your friends just said? I swear I just want to kill you! You're been driving me up a wall!"

"Now Rika," Takato placated, "we don't want to strangle anyone, especially someone who is trying to help us. Come on, Davis isn't that bad, he isn't any worse than Kazu at any rate."

"Yeah, don't take anything seriously that comes out of Davis' mouth. He doesn't really have a filter like the rest of us do." TK joked.

"Watch it TS!"

"Davis when will you learn to put your foot in your mouth?" Tai asked, shaking his head at his mentee.

"I bet Davis can already put his foot in his mouth! I've seen him stuff 15 spring rolls in there!" Veemon exclaimed, missing the point of expression.

"Wait?" Pondered Guilmon. "You mean most people can't fit that many spring rolls in their mouth? I've fit at least 20."

"That's because you're a big lug of a dinosaur, boy." Takato answered.

"Got it!" Shouted Izzy. "Look at this, the Digi-port program pulled up just fine everything looks good. We just need to get the D3 to activate the Digi-port. Let's go out to the others."

The group walked outside of the concrete structure. Everyone gathered around to hear the verdict. "Everything seems to functioning correctly with the Digi-port program." Izzy explained. "All we need to do is get a D3 to activate the portal to open it. Now, I must warn you, this is the step that we have been having problems with back in our own dimension, so we're not out of the woods yet. Yolei, if you would do the honors."

"Sure thing Izzy! Digi-port open!"

Nothing happened for a few moments. The group sighed. "No!" Davis yelled, "Try again! Digi-port open!"

Nothing happened again. Everyone turned to leave; Izzy began to shut his computer. "No! Stop!" Davis yelled increasingly getting frustrated. "Digi-port open! Digi-port open! Ahh! DIGI-PORT OPEN!" Suddenly a white light came from somewhere in the trees and went into Izzy's screen. Then, the red that denoted that the portal was closed disappeared was replaced with green, denoting that the portal was open. Everyone stared in shock as Davis shouted, "Well! Here we go!"

Everyone crowded in front of the computer to be transported to the Digiworld. Everyone that is, except Ryo, who stepped out of the way at the last minute, determined to find where that white light was coming from. 'Renamon was right,' he thought. That light hadn't come from Davis. Something else was there, and it wanted them in the Digiworld. But for what reason, he did not know.

* * *

Back at Hypnos, Tally was trying to contact Ryo. "Yamaki," she called, "I've called Ryo's house, but his father says he isn't there. He mentioned something about him wandering off with that stupid dragon again. Do you think he's trying to go back to the Digital World?"

"I'm not sure Tally, I think we should contact the other Tamers and see if something is wrong." Yamaki replied.

The women nodded and started dialing numbers.

"Rika is gone."

"So is Takato."

"The Katos haven't seen Jeri either."

"Kazu has been gone all afternoon."

"Kenta's mother said that he was staying the night at Kazu's and she hasn't heard from him."

Riley gasped, "Yamaki! I just got a hold of Janyu. He said that Henry is trying to find a way into the Digital World to help a digimon that's dying. He said that Henry left with Suzie and the digimon about two hours ago."

Yamaki scowled at the information, but he didn't have much time to think about it. A large energy surge appeared on the screen in the park.

"Yamaki…" Riley stuttered, "a-a-a portal to the Digital World has been opened."

Yamaki growled internally. Those kids were always finding ways to get themselves into trouble. "Call Janyu again. We'll need help on this one."


	6. The Return of Annalismon

**Hey guys! So, the story is really starting to take off now. Unfortunately, today is Ash Wednesday, and fanfiction is on my list of things to give up, so this will be my last post until Easter. But, since I'm going to be gone for so long, I'm going to post several chapters simultaneously. Also, another note, Annalismon is a Champion level digimon that I made up for the purposes of this story. She digivolves from Lopmon into Beast Angemon and from there into Cherubimon. ****I hope you've enjoyed the story so far. Other than that, please review, I'd love to know what you're thinking! :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or any of it's characters. I just like to play around with them.**

* * *

Ryo and Cyberdramon walked back over to the cluster of trees that Renamon had directed them to watch earlier. All the events that happened had been disturbing to him, and it wasn't getting any better. There was something about those Digidestined that he wasn't sure he liked. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he decided it was time to get away when the black haired one with a Wormmon as a partner kept staring at him. It was unnerving. Now he was alone again. It didn't matter though. This was how it had always been anyways, him alone. Sure, meeting the others had changed things a lot, but he was still accustomed to operating on his own. It was incredibly lonely, but he had no idea how to operate on a team, even a disconnected one like the Tamers. He was too much of a loner.

Determined to find the source of the light, he walked into the grove of trees. He paused to listen carefully. Silence. Whatever it was, it was doing a pretty good job at hiding. Suddenly, he heard a thump somewhere to his side. He saw nothing, but then it hit him. He scooped up a handful of mud and shouted, "Cyberdramon! Get it! It's invisible!"

Cyberdramon tried, but whatever it was proved to be very wily. The thing was as silent as it was invisible. Yet, just as he was about to give up and try a new tactic, a branch broke at the edge of the trees.

Dread spread through Ryo. It was going after the Digi-port. "Cyberdramon! The computer! Don't let it get the computer! Digimodify! Speed Activate!" Ryo shouted as he ran back toward the hideout. Cyberdramon took off, and just as the invisible being was lifting up the computer, he grabbed hold of it. Catching up, Ryo threw the mud in the air, and hit the being. "There you are! Reveal yourself! I know you're there!" He shouted.

He heard a sigh from the mud-covered thing in the air. "Fine, Gennai and Azulongmon are going to kill me anyways." Ryo heard a swishing noise and a thump as the being landed. Cyberdramon landed and stood in front of of his partner protectively. "Relax, I'm not going to hurt you or your partner. Not that I could manage to take on the likes of you anyways," the voice said.

Suddenly there was a white light that seemed to engulf a human shaped being. When the light faded, a red headed girl wearing jeans and a turquoise shirt with a yellow star across the chest stood in its place. "You know, that whole throwing mud thing was entirely unnecessary. It'll take forever to get this stain out." She said, as she gestured to a rather large stain on the bottom of her right leg. "Dang, these were my favorite pants too."

"Well, I couldn't just let you take the computer now, could I." Ryo responded.

"I wasn't taking it, you dummy. I was going to go to the Digiworld through it. I mean really, you were supposed to go through the gate with your friends anyways."

"And why would I. I don't know you, why would I do what you want? It's obvious you opened that portal for the others. Why do you want them in the Digital World?"

"I can't just be a saintly soul that wants to help out?"

Ryo shook his head.

"Well, though I would do it just to help out, I have invested interest in that Lopmon's survival."

"Really? Why?"

"It doesn't matter." The girl said as she tried to get to the computer again.

"Nice try, but actually it does." Ryo said as Cyberdramon blocked her way.

The girl gave a small laugh, "Oh well, I'm in trouble anyways. I guess I should be glad that you're so skeptical. Sometimes those guys," she gestured at the computer, "don't have enough common sense. At least you won't take candy from a Puppetmon. I should have know that you would be the one to not go, based on your past."

"What are you talking about? And who are you to know my past?"

The girl didn't answer the question, but instead redirected. "Sorry, my name is Rebecca, although, most people call me Becky. The reason I want that Lopmon to survive is because, well, I think she's my partner."

"Wait, what?"

"Right, she's my partner. See, I was on a mission here, about a year ago when my partner Annalismon and I were attacked. She got pulled into the Digital World, and I haven't seen her since."

"Why didn't you just open a portal and look for her, I mean it pretty obvious that you have that ability."

"You don't think I tried that? I looked everywhere in this world and the next, but I couldn't get into the southern quadrant where Zhuqiaomon was. It was his servant Makuramon who kidnapped her in the first place. This is the first time in a long time that I've been able to open a portal here."

"What makes you think it was that digimon? I mean you said that your partner was an Annalismon or whatever it was. That was a Lopmon."

"Lopmon is her rookie form, and I just have a feeling that it is her. Anyways, I couldn't just let that innocent digimon die. I'm not heartless."

"Then why keep it all a secret? Don't you want to be reunited with your partner?"

"Well yeah, that was kind of the point of going to the Digital World. You guys aren't supposed to know who I am. In fact, I am going to be in so much trouble for revealing myself to you. It isn't even funny. I was going to hide until Lopmon regained enough strength to leave the others and then go to her."

"What's with all the secrecy? Why should I trust you if you have so many secrets?"

"You have so many questions Ryo. You will know the answers in time. Right this moment isn't exactly the right time. I'm sorry. I know this is a hard lesson. I've had to learn it time and time again."

"What are you talking about? And how do you know my name?"

"I'm sorry, but I can't say anything more right now. The time is approaching fast when you will know everything I know, and maybe even some I don't, but right now, you need to decide whether what I've given you is sufficient for the time being. That either means we're going to the Digital World or I am running away to a place that you can't follow. What will it be?"

Ryo gritted his teeth. He did not like this ultimatum. This girl may look his age, but she was not one to be trifled with. She handled herself like a full-fledged adult. 'Although,' he thought to himself, 'living a life of secrecy and shadows would force you to grow up quite a bit.'

"Alright," he said, "I agree to go along with you to the Digital World."

Becky smiled at him, "Great, here we go!" She took off some kind of necklace and pulled out a light lavender D3. "Digi-port open!" A white light shot out of the necklace and the port opened once again. This time Ryo felt himself being sucked into the Digital World.

* * *

While Ryo was discovering the existence Becky, the Digidestined and Tamers arrived in the Digital World. It was not quite the same as what the Digidestined were accustomed to, seeing as there was no portal for them travel through. They simply fell from the sky. Everyone landed with a crash in the Land of the Digimon Sovereign. They groaned from the hard impact.

"Henwy! My head huwts!" Suzie wailed.

Though he himself was a bit bruised, Henry jumped up and went to his sister. Everyone else looked around and tried to get their bearings.

"Where are we?" Tai asked.

"We are in the Land of the Digimon Sovereign. Right there is the gate that I guarded for many years," replied Suzie's Lopmon.

"What's up with the sky?" Joe asked.

Kenta gave them a weird look. "Don't you know? That's the Real World. You can always see it in the sky."

"Not where we're from. I've never seen anything like this." Joe replied.

Izzy continued to look at the injured Lopmon. "Hmm I thought she would have regained consciousness by now, unless she was hurt in the fall. I'm not really sure how to cure her. I guess the best thing to do is to find Gennai. He should know what to do."

"Or, we could ask Azulongmon." Tentomon added.

Takato walked over to the pair, "Well I don't know where we can find that Gennai guy, but I think we may be able to find Azulongmon. He lives here in the Land of the Digimon Sovereign."

Tai replied, "Well I guess that's our best bet! Lead the way Takato!"

Takato blushed, "Umm… ok. So, Azulongmon, he's the sovereign of the… of the… of the…"

"Of the East," Rika supplied.

"Right, so if we're in Zhuqiaomon's realm, which is the southern realm, then we need… we need," Takato gulped, under feeling the pressure of leading his idols. "We need to go this way." He turned and started walking.

"Umm Takato… actually, we need to go this way." Henry quipped, his D-Power out, a compass showing the directions of north, south, east, and west.

"Right! I was just testing you! Let's go!"

"Takato, why are you all red? You look like me!" Guilmon asked as Takato began walking toward Azulongmon's realm.

"Hey! Why are we following this goggle head? Where's Hero Boy? He's the one who lived in the Digital World for a year. He knows his way around." Rika commented. She looked around, she couldn't find him.

"Yeah! Where did Ryo go?" Kazu asked.

Everyone looked around frantically for few minutes, everyone except Ken.

"Did you say Ryo?" He asked.

"Yeah, what's it to you?" Kenta asked.

"Oh nothing, his name just sounds familiar. He was that guy standing off to the side in the real world, right? The one with the big cyborg digimon for a partner?"

"That's right."

Ken had a troubled look on his face, as if he was trying to remember something.

Kenta, a bit frightened by this intense display asked, "Hey, are you ok?"

Shaking his head Ken replied, "Yes, I'm fine, sorry I just zoned out there for a minute."

"Ok?"

Davis intervened on the conversation, "Oh don't worry about Ken. He's a genius, so he tends to zone out from time to time." He came and patted Ken on the back.

"Thanks a lot Davis." Ken replied exasperatedly.

"No problem buddy!" Davis replied, oblivious to his friend's sarcasm.

The group continued to look, but had no luck.

"Well," said Takato, "I guess he either didn't come along or went off to do his own thing. Ryo tends to do that sort of thing anyways. He'll probably show up if we really need him. It's probably time we start walking toward Azulongmon's realm."

* * *

The group traveled for about 45 minutes and encountered nothing along the way. "This land is so empty," remarked Kari. "I'm used to seeing digimon everywhere, and we haven't met anyone yet."

"That's because we're in the Land of the Digimon Sovereign. Not many digimon live here besides The Sovereign and their servants," replied Rika. "Let's hope it stays that way for now. We're in Zhuqiaomon's realm right now. Nothing here will be particularly pleasant toward us."

The group continued walking, when suddenly the ground below them began to shake.

"What's going on?" Yolei shouted.

"Look! Drimogemon!" Ken shouted.

"And Minotarumon!" Shouted Davis.

"Let's take care of them!" Tai shouted.

The digimon of the Digidestined began to glow as they digivolved to their champion forms.

"We might as well get in on this too!" Henry shouted, "Digi-modify! Digievolution activate!" Takato and Rika followed suit, and soon a host of champion digimon stood protectively in front of their partners.

A maniacal laughing came from above. Zhuqiaomon swooped down into view. "I see that you've disturbed my servants here. As much as I'd like to see them fight you, I don't really want to look for more servants in the near future." He turned to the digimon, "Go back to your posts. I'll take care of it from here. Thank you for your loyal service." Turning back to the Tamers and Digidestined, "I figured I should take care of you myself now that you are within my grasp. After all you defeated all my Devas, and they have been oh so hard to replace."

"Guys, I think we might need to biomerge!" Takato shouted.

'Great, where's Hero Boy now, when we do need him' Rika thought as Kyubimon de-digivolved. When their partners were ready, Rika, Takato, and Henry shouted, "Biomerge activate!"

The humans merged with their partners in a flash of light. When light faded and three megas stood in their place: Gallantmon, Sakuyamon, and MegaGargomon.

"Whoa! Did they just merge with their digimon partners?" Matt asked.

"Yup, they're the lucky ones." Kazu replied. "Although, they wouldn't have defeated the D-Reaper without me and Guardromon."

"I think we should give them a little help guys!" Davis shouted.

The younger Digidestined nodded as their Digimon DNA-digivolved. When they finished, Silphymon, Shakkoumon, and Imperialdramon fighter mode joined the megas.

"Ha!" Zhuqiaomon laughed, "You foolish children think that you can beat me! _Blazing Helix!_" The phoenix digimon sent his fiery attack at his opponents.

* * *

Back where the Tamers and Digidestined originally landed, Ryo, Cyberdramon and Becky landed, all displaying much more grace than their predecessors had.

"Well, where do you think the others went?" Ryo asked.

"Hmm… I would venture that they would probably be over there where those flames are raging in the sky. That's just a guess though." Becky replied pointing to the bright flames highlighting the sky several miles away.

"Oh my gosh! We need to get to them right away!" Ryo yelled.

"Yup, thank you captain obvious. Why don't you swipe one of those speed cards and get us there?"

"What do you think I'm doing? Anyways, I don't see you helping."

"Well there's not much I can do… except… Come on swipe that card. I might be able to give him a little bit of a speed boost too, although it won't be as effective, since he's not my partner."

Ryo nodded, swiped the card and jumped onto Cyberdramon's back with Becky. He began to fly. Becky pulled her necklace off again, closed her eyes and pressed it to Cyberdramon's back. Suddenly, his speed began to increase even more than before. She took smiled. "There we go. We should be there in no time."

Cyberdramon was going so fast, it only took him a couple minutes to reach the others. Shakkoumon had swallowed Zhuqiaomon's attack and was steaming, trying to cool his inner temperature again. The others were attempting to approach the phoenix, but had no luck since fiery whips seemed to lash out at them every time they got close.

Cyberdramon landed, and Ryo and Becky jumped off. Seeing his friends in danger, Ryo biomerged immediately and as Justimon he flew up and stood by Sakuyamon.

Looking to her side she said, "Nice timing hero boy."

Zhuqiaomon let off another attack. "_Blazing Helix!"_ This time it managed to hit Shakkoumon and Silphymon, slamming them to the ground.

"No!" Shouted Becky dismayed at the scene in front of her.

The others turned around. Upon recognizing her, TK, Tai, Kari, and Izzy gasped.

"Becky?" TK asked, "What are you doing here?"

But she didn't respond. Shaking with anger, she walked forward pushing through the crowd of people in front of her. Tai and TK tried to restrain her, but she shook them off easily.

"Dang! She's stronger than she looks!" Tai said as she broke his grip.

Walking straight in front of the Sovereign, she shouted, "Zhuqiaomon! What are you doing?"

Looking down, he saw the girl standing defiantly in front of him. "Girl! How dare you question my motives? I am a Sovereign! You do as I say!"

"How dare you question my motives? I am not a servant. I am a Digidestined. I fight for the balance of the Digital World, and I fight for those who uphold its peace. I have a duty to protect this world and that meant that we were allied at one time. But, it seems as though you have changed your alliance. You know better than to attack the Digidestined. If you attack them, that means you are an enemy to the peace. And, that means you are my enemy." She responded.

With that she took off her necklace once again, closed her eyes and focused. She held it up and yelled, "Crest of Life weaponry activate!" She began to glow and suddenly she was wearing flexible leather clothing with two thin swords in a crossed holster on her back. The blades were no ordinary blades though. When she pulled them out they seemed to be made out of a type of bright, glowing, white energy. She stood, swords out, ready to face Zhuqiaomon.

The phoenix snorted. "Do you really think you can fight me Rebecca Torraman? Where's your digimon? Maybe if she was here it would be worth my time to destroy you."

"You tell me where she is, you kidnapping betrayer!"

"What? Does poor Rebecca miss her digimon? You know Annalismon was a hard one to break. She fought me for months until there was no way for her to fight me anymore. She had such a sense of loyalty and duty toward you and her mission."

"Stop it! Give her back!"

"You may as well face the facts. Whether Annalismon is alive or dead she is mine and she will never be yours again! _Blazing Helix!"_

Becky jumped into the air, crossing the swords in front of her, cutting through the attack. The crest's power had strengthened her, so the jump brought her at level with Zhuqiaomon's face.

He smirked, "Is that the best you can do?" Then whipped a claw out faster than anyone could see and stuck Becky hard, sending her careening toward the ground.

Everyone gasped, terrified at what was happening. Sakuyamon tried to catch her, but the flames blocked her. The injured Lopmon began thrashing and screaming. Out of the jumble of things that that she said, one word was intelligible, "Becky!"

As Becky spiraled toward the earth, she cried, "Annalismon! ANNALISMON!"

Suddenly the D3 in her pocket and her crest began to glow. The light from the two engulfed the thrashing Lopmon, and suddenly she began to digivolve…

"_Lopmon digivolve to… Annalismon!"_

The light faded and in place of the unconscious Lopmon, a much larger dark purple rabbit stood in her place. She was a little shorter than Cody and had large ears that fell past her knees. On each of her ears had a single yellow zigzag that ran down the center. The zigzag flowed straight into a single yellow curled ribbon that adorned the bottom of each ear.

Suddenly aware of what was happening, she jumped up and ran to catch her partner, just in time. Becky looked at the rabbit that saved her and began to cry. "I knew I'd find you!" She coughed a little.

Annalismon smiled, "Shh… It's ok. I missed you. I'm so happy, I'm not even going to comment on how I'm mad that you got into a fight without me." She hugged her partner. "I love you Becky. I'd never abandon you."

Zhuqiaomon growled from above, "No! How did you break the block? No matter, your data will serve me just as well as your body."

Annalismon carefully set Becky on the ground and said, "Are you that far gone Zhuqiaomon, that you would kill the child of a Celestial Leader? You may have been corrupted, but I thought that you still valued your life at least."

"You know nothing! These humans are the source of the corruption in this world. The only way to stop it is to get rid of the humans!"

"You're wrong," Annalismon replied, "yes evil has its roots in humans, but so does good. The only way to beat evil is to combine the good of digimon and the good of humans and fight together. You know this is true."

"We'll see who is wrong!"

"Fine if that is the way you want it." The rabbit turned to her partner, "Becky?"

"Let's do this! Crest of Life activate! Partner mode!"

Annalismon floated in the air as she began to digivolve, and Becky started glowing as well and was propelled up toward her partner's digivolving form. When she reached Annalismon's form, entered into her partner's light.

_"Annalismon digivolve to… BeastAngemon!"_

The Tamers and Digidestined gasped at the sight in front of them. They had never seen anything like it in their lives. BeastAngemon was about the height of Angemon. The creature had eight wings, and the iconic Angemon helmet. Her body was thin and lithe, and was covered in white fur. She had thick claws on both her hands and feet. A thick golden band wrapped around her waist that held a sword.

Beside her stood who they thought was Becky, but it was hard to tell. She was covered in thin, white armor and had a pair of glowing, white wings attached to her back. Her same two blades were on her back again, but this time, a white shield also hanging at her side accompanied them.

"What are those Izzy?" Davis asked amazed.

Izzy pulled up the identifier. "Well that is BeastAngemon, a ultimate vaccine type digimon. But it won't pull up data on the other… I think," he added in a small voice, "that might be Becky who was somehow morphed when she crossed through BeastAngemon's Digievolution field."

Zhuqiaomon laughed. "So now Daddy's girl is ready to fight! I can't wait until I see the look on your face as I load your data!"

"Never!" Shouted the pair as they flew into battle. As they approached, the other digimon took up their flanks and began to charge forward with them.

They were about to attack when a voice above them yelled, "Stop!"


	7. The Twisted Will of Zhuqiaomon

**I don't own Digimon. I just like to play with their characters. **

* * *

The group halted their attack and looked up. There, above them was Azulongmon and holding onto one of his chains was Gennai. When the dragon stopped moving, Gennai jumped down to the ground. All the Digidestined were excited to see Gennai, but a squeal came from the most excited. BeastAngemon flew down with Becky hot on her heels. As they descended, they reverted back to their normal forms. When they reached the ground, a very excited Annalismon ran over to Gennai and nearly tackled him with a hug. "Gennai!" She shouted with joy.

But what surprised everyone (except Becky) was Gennai's reaction. They did not expect for him to embrace her just as tightly and exclaim with just as much glee, "Annalismon!" He held the embrace for a while, looking a bit like a father does when he embraces his child. After he was done hugging Annalismon he turned to Becky, "You found her! Thank God!"

"Did you ever doubt that I would?" Becky replied, a look of pure joy on her face.

"No, not at all, I just wish it hadn't taken so long."

Everyone was watching the scene with confusion expect Azulongmon, who had a look of happy amusement on his face, and Zhuqiaomon, who had a look of pure disgust.

"Umm would someone care to explain exactly what's going on?" Tai asked impatiently.

"All in due time Taichi. I think we have a situation to deal with first. Zhuqiaomon what is the meaning of this violence? Do you no longer care for the Digital World?"

"It's all the humans' fault! They created evil, so if we destroy them, then evil will be gone."

"My friend, I think you are being deceived."

"No I'm not! I just need to load more data, and then I can destroy the humans. The first step is to get rid of these pesky Digidestined and Tamers."

"What has gotten into you? I know you have never been a fan of humans, but this is excessive. You know our duty and you know the prophecy. We have a job to protect this world, but lately you've done nothing but destroy. My friend what is wrong with you?" Azulongmon moved closer.

"No! Don't touch me! Don't get near me!" the phoenix cried, seeming almost to be in pain.

Gennai and Azulongmon looked puzzled at this behavior. Becky watched him for a moment, until an idea came to her. She walk over took off her crest and took out her D3 and began to shine their light on Zhuqiaomon. The bird began to scream in pain and thrash about. "Becky! Stop!" TK yelled.

But, Zhuqiaomon diagreed, "No! Don't stop! Get it out!"

Gennai's eyes widened in understanding, "Quick! Everyone shine your Digivice on Zhuqiaomon. He's being controlled by evil. We must expel it from his body."

As if coming out of a stupor, the others took out their Digivices and directed the light at Zhuqiaomon, Digidestined and Tamer alike. Gallantmon, Justimon, MegaGargomon, and Sakuyamon all dedigivolved and Takato, Ryo, Henry, and Rika joined in.

Zhuqiaomon began to thrash even harder as whatever had taken control of him fought to keep control, but after a couple terrible minutes, a dark mass pulled out of his body and disappeared.

The giant digimon then crashed to the ground, depleted of all his strength. From his mouth came a terrible sobbing noise. "What have I done?" He screamed, wrestling with the mental anguish. Azulongmon tried to approach Zhuqiaomon, but he screamed, "Get away!" Fearing that in his fellow sovereign may be still dangerous in his unstable mental state, he backed up.

"Zhuqiaomon?" Lopmon approached her former master cautiously, but Annalismon pulled her back.

"Stop, he may still be dangerous. He's not entirely here." She said as she restrained the struggling digimon.

Yet, even as Annalismon held onto Lopmon, Ken approached the phoenix. Davis, Veemon, and Wormmon were hanging on him, trying to stop him, but the boy's determination overpowered them. Ken stood in front of the giant digimon. "I know how you feel," he said quietly. "I know that you're a big powerful digimon, more powerful than I could ever hope to be, but I am sorry for this. The evil took advantage of you, like it did to me. No one deserves what it has done to you."

Zhuqiaomon look up into Ken's eyes, and a moment of understanding seemed to pass between them. With a great caw, he took flight and opened a portal to a mysterious dimension in the air.

As he was about to enter, Azulongmon called, "Brother! Don't go!"

"I must," answered the bird, with a sad look.

Azulongmon tried to stop him, but Ken yelled, "Don't stop him! This is what he needs to do."

The dragon stopped and watched sadly as Zhuqiaomon entered the portal and disappeared. Silence swept over the Tamers and Digidestined. No one seemed to know what to say. They stood there in shocked awe at what they had just witnessed.

After a few minutes, Azulongmon sighed and said, "I guess it is time that you go back home."

"But how do we do that?" Asked Takato.

"You must journey with me," answered Azulongmon. "There is no easy way from this quadrant, but there are portals in mine. I'm afraid it's a bit of a walk though."

"What do you mean?" Asked Henry, "I thought we were almost to your quadrant."

"Ahh, there is so little that you know about the Digital World. This Land of the Sovereigns is nothing but a place for the sovereigns to stay here in the southern quadrant. The true boundary lies further away. In fact we must cross the ocean to find it. The boundary lines of the Digital World are set up around File Island."

"Wait, what?" asked Izzy. "I thought we were in another dimension."

"Izzy, the knowledge that you seek is very complex, and now is not the time. My heart is greatly troubled at the moment. Just know that when you first came to the digital world, it was whole, but after the defeat of Apocalymon, things changed, and your crests aided us in those changes."

To the left, Becky stood with Annalismon leaning against her, a bit separated from the rest of the group, speaking intently with Gennai. Azulongmon directed his attention to the three, "Rebecca, before you go back to the human world, I would like a word with you. You have done some very serious actions and we need to speak of them."

Annalismon looked sadly at her partner and hugged her. Becky took a deep breath and said, "I understand Azulongmon. I will stay after the others have left." She turned to her partner and whispered into her ear, "I'm sorry Annalismon. I couldn't wait anymore."

"It's ok. I know. I'd do the same if it was you." Her partner whispered back. "Just so you know I'm proud of you."

Ryo, who was standing nearby was in deep thought. Only an hour ago, he couldn't say that he trusted Becky, but now he was filled with pity. It was obvious that the reason she had was forced to a life of secrecy was because of Azulongmon. He couldn't imagine being separated from Cyberdramon the way she had been from Annalismon. He would have gone to the ends of the Earth to find him. In fact, he almost did, when he was trying to find a portal after the D-Reaper attacked. But now, Becky was in big trouble for doing what was natural. He couldn't stand for it. "Hey! There's no way that Becky is staying here with you. She's going home with us."

Azulongmon and the rest of the group didn't seem to notice his outburst. They were talking amongst themselves, worried about how long it would take to get back.

"Ryo, stop, it's alright, Azulongmon won't hurt me." Becky whispered frantically trying to stop him.

But he continued to press forward. "Azulongmon!" He shouted, gaining the attention, not only of the dragon, but the entire group. "I will not allow you to do this! Whatever secrecy you have sworn her to, she only did what was right as a partner. You can't punish her for that. I won't go through the portal without her!"

From below, there was an almost collective gasp from the older group of Digidestined. "R-R-Ryo? Ryo Akiyama? Is that really you?" Tai said, taken aback.

Ryo looked down in shock. How did Tai know his name? Of course he knew his name, but he didn't know any of the other Tamers. Why him?

Azulongmon sighed, almost resigned, "Foolish boy. You are sending us even further down a path that I wish to delay as long as possible. You seem to be a kink even in our best made plans Ryo Akiyama."

Tai walked over to him hesitantly. "You're alive? We- we thought you died in that explosion with Millenniummon."

Ryo gave him a strange look. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I mean, your Ryo Akiyama, right?"

"Yeah, it's just, I don't remember."

Tai reached out to make sure that the person in front of him was real. Something deep inside of Ryo recoiled at the Digidestined's touch. A sense of betrayal and sadness swept over him, and he pulled away from Tai's hand. Tai didn't say anything. He just looked at his shoes, almost ashamed, as he walked back to the other Digidestined. Matt, Sora, Joe, Izzy, TK, and Kari all had the same shamed faces when they saw his reaction.

Not understanding, but suddenly extremely angry, Ryo began to storm away. "Wait! Ryo!" A voice called from behind him. He looked behind. Rika was running toward him and behind her, Wormmon was pushing Ken toward him. When the three caught up. Rika looked him in they eyes and said, "Please, don't go. Don't disappear again."

Something about the Tamer's words seemed to click inside of Ken. He looked straight into Ryo's eyes and gasped. "Ryo? Is that really you?" In an unexpected display of affection, Ken rushed over to him and embraced the teen. He began to cry. "I can't believe it. It is really you. You're alive!"

The Tamer didn't understand. It was all too much. The embrace didn't repulse him, as was with Tai, but strong sorrowful emotions began to awaken inside of him. He backed up and cried, "Why don't I understand?"

As he called out, a great mass of Digi Gnomes gathered around him, as if his call was a beacon.

"What are those?" Asked Yolei.

"Those are Digi Gnomes," said Jeri, "They have the power to grant wishes."

The gnomes reached out and touched Ryo and began swirling in a great mass. It lasted for about a minute, and then just as quickly as it started, the Digi Gnomes stopped. They backed-up and flew away into the distance. Left behind was and unconscious Ryo.

Everyone was in shock not understanding what had happened. For a second time that day, silence fell over the group. All seemed calm, except of the echoes of lost memories that were running through Ryo's mind as his unconscious mind revisited them.


	8. The Life of Ryo Akiyama Part I

**This is the beginning of a two part section on Ryo's past story. I've tried to take into account both the Wonder Swan games as well as the information in the 02 season, but there are some parts that conflict. I had to change Ryo's age to take into account the 4 years that passed after the 01 season. In this story, he is 16, aged a year from the 03 season. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or anything else you recognize. **

* * *

Ryo stood in between two individuals, a woman and a man. Both looked to be in about their mid-30's. The woman had raven black hair that was pulled up into a bun on top of her head. She had crystal blue eyes and a soft smile. The man beside her looked almost exactly like Ryo. His hair was cut short, as most professionals should, but if Ryo was a few years older, it could be him, everything, except the eyes. 'How ironically like Harry Potter' the boy thought as he realized that he was looking at his parents.

"Ryo," said his mom, "come meet these new kids. They are our neighbors. I met their mother at the supermarket the other day, and I thought you might like having a play date with them."

Ryo could feel resentment running through him. 'That's right,' he thought, 'I was angry because we moved.' He looked down at himself. 'Wow, I must only be 7 or 8 years old.' Across from him he saw two black haired boys. One a year older and the other was a year younger. The younger one was smiling up at him, looking excited, while the older one seemed to be looking at him critically.

"Ryo this is Sam and his younger brother Ken. Play nice! I'll be back in a couple hours."

* * *

The memory faded into another. He was on the computer. He was a few years older now, probably about 10. Suddenly, the power went out. Sighing in frustration, he got up to leave when something appeared on the screen. It was a yellowy orange dinosaur. But he didn't just appear, the dinosaur talked. He said that his name was Agumon and that he needed help. As he was talking, the screen lit up and a strange device came out of the computer. Agumon told him to pick up the device.

Suddenly, he was pulled into his computer, and the world he knew as home was left behind. He was transported to some strange world, the Digital World, which he had never seen in his life. And it was there he met a digimon for the first time. It was Agumon. He had a quest for Ryo. The Digidestined and their partners, who had saved the world not too long ago, had been captured by an evil digimon. Agumon was the only one who had managed to escape. With him he carried his partner, Tai's, Digivice. Originally, the Digivice was pretty useless because Agumon couldn't use it to digivolve like he could when Tai had it, but eventually, he found it to be useful when trying to find allies to free the Digidestined. The pair had fought many battles together, and finally they met the creator of the mess, a nasty, powerful digimon named Millenniummon. Somehow, they managed to beat him, and all was restored to as it was. Ryo remembered watching sadly as Agumon was reunited with Tai. The digimon was never his partner, no matter how much the two had gone through together. He was happy to have been able to help, but he wished that someday he would have his own partner.

* * *

The scene faded out again. This time he reappeared not much later and he was speaking with his friend Sam at his house. "Ryo, do you remember when you told me about when you went to that strange world? You said that the monster that you met gave you a weird looking device. He called it a Digivice, right?"

Ryo nodded in affirmative.

"Here take a look at this," he said as he pulled open a desk drawer. He pulled out a Digivice that looked exactly like Tai's that he had seen a few months earlier.

Ryo gasped, "Sam! Where did you get that?"

"It just came out of the computer when Ken and I were in our room. I'm worried Ryo. I told Ken not to touch it, I remember you telling me how dangerous that world was. But then I left for an hour. When I came back I found Ken playing with it."

"Did he go to the Digital World?"

"I don't know. I was gone for too long. I never saw him leave or come back. I was really worried though. I mean what if he did go to that other world, and he got hurt? I kinda freaked out on him when I saw him playing with it. I feel bad; I'm just not very good at communicating with him. I wish you had been there, he looks up to you so much."

"I guess we really don't know if that Digivice was meant for you or for Ken, unless one of you positively goes to the Digital World."

"I don't know. I just have a feeling that it belongs to Ken. Ryo, I want you to promise me something. I don't think that I'll be able to keep Ken out of the Digital World. I'm going to try my best, but promise me this. If he ends going there, will you protect him?" Sam said this passionately, his eyes filled with genuine worry for his younger brother.

Ryo put his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Don't worry Sam. As long as I am with Ken, I will protect him. Nothing will happen to him on my watch."

Sam shook his head. "Don't say nothing will happen. You can't guarantee that. Sorry, that's the genius in me speaking. Just make sure that you protect him."

Ryo gave his friend a reassuring look. "Don't worry, I will."

* * *

The memory faded to a couple months later. Ryo was on a camping trip with his parents and the Ichijouji family. Sam yelled to him, "Ryo! Look at this!" He had brought his laptop. Sam couldn't go anywhere without it, and his parents let him because after all he was a genius.

Ryo ran over, and watched in shock when he saw Diaboromon fighting WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon. The thing that shocked him most though wasn't the battle; it was that the digimon were losing. He had never witnessed Agumon fighting with his partner before, but from what he had understood from the dinosaur's stories, they were a powerful force, especially when they combined their powers with their friends Matt and Gabumon.

"Is this it? That Digital World you were telling me about?"

"Yeah, and it doesn't look good because they're losing."

Ken came up behind the older boys and asked, "What are you talking about? Who's losing?" When he saw what was on the computer, he gasped, "Woah!"

"Ken! Get away from here!" Sam shouted.

Ryo shuttered at his friend's reprimand. Ken broke into tears and ran away. Sam's face, a moment ago contorted in anger, changed to one of regret instantly. He ran after his brother, "Aww Kenny, come back! I didn't mean it!"

Ryo shook his head. Sam was certainly a genius, but he didn't have very good people skills. Ken couldn't understand this because he was just a kid, but Sam actually cared for him a lot.

He continued to watch the battle with rapt attention. He saw everything. Diaboromon copying himself time and time again, WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon almost dying, then Tai and Matt entering the computer to help their friends. He gripped the computer hard as he watched the countdown ticked away and as the two megas combined to make Omnimon.

He felt so helpless, able nothing he could do. Time trickled down and all seemed lost when suddenly Diaboromon slowed down and Omnimon defeated him in the last second.

Ryo sighed in relief. 'They did it!' He thought joyfully. As he was thinking this, Sam came over to Ryo.

"We're going back home," he said glumly. "Mom says that Ken is too upset and that sleeping in his own bed tonight might make him feel better. But quick while the others are gathering stuff up, let's watch that battle!"

"It's over Sam," Ryo replied. "They won."

"Seriously? I wanted to watch!"

"Trust me, you miss didn't anything that you would want to see."

"Fine," huffed Sam. "Hey come on. Help me take this tent down."

Ryo nodded and followed his friend.

* * *

The memory faded again, and Ryo now stood at the Ichijouji house. "Gosh!" Shouted Sam angrily, "I can't believe that Ken is still mad at me! I said I was sorry."

Ryo put his hand on his friend's back. "Hey, why don't you let me go talk to him? I might be able to talk some sense into him."

Sam sighed, "Yeah, he looks up to you so much. Plus, you've got better people skills that I do."

Ryo laughed as he walked down the hall to the room that Ken and Sam shared, "What can I say, it's a gift."

He gently knocked on the door. "Ken," he called, "Ken, it's Ryo. Can I come in?"

He heard a small "yes" come from the younger boy, so he entered the room. Ken was on his bed crying, huddled up in a ball. Ryo walked over to him. "Ryo," he asked, " why is Sam so mean to me? I didn't do anything wrong. I just wanted to see what you guys were doing."

Ryo smiled sadly. "Hey Ken, you know what Sam is like. He didn't mean to be mean. It just came out that way. He was just trying to protect you." He gave the younger boy a hug. "You know, Sam is outside fretting about you right now. He thinks that you're never going to forgive him."

"What?" Gasped Ken. "No, he can't think that. I may be mad at him, but I love him. Of course I'll forgive him."

"Well you better tell him."

"Yeah, I should."

Ryo smiled, relieved that his plan worked. Ken was just about to leave when suddenly, the computer on the desk lit up, turning on of it's own accord. "Woah, Ryo! Check this out! I think there's a digimon on the computer."

Ryo froze. So Sam had been right. Ken had been to the Digital World.

"Ryo," it called.

Ryo nearly smacked himself in the face. Of all the most inconvenient times, it had to be now? He sighed and went over to the computer. "Yes," he said.

"My name is Veemon. We need you to come back to the Digital World. It is in grave danger."

"And what does it want with you?" Ken asked amazed.

Veemon spoke again, "Here," the screen glowed and a weird looking device came out, just like the first time. "This will help you get to the Digiworld. Please Ryo, we need your help again."

Ryo sighed, "Fine, I'm there." With that he picked up the device, his older self recognized as another kind of Digivice.

"Great!" Said Veemon excitedly.

With that, the computer screen began to glow brightly. When the light faded, Ryo was gone.

Ryo found himself in the Digital World again. He landed in a place called Primary Village. Apparently Gennai had requested for him. It wasn't exactly ideal, but if he had been called to save the Digital World, then he would do it. He only had one question.

"So Veemon," he asked, "are you my partner?"

Veemon was about to answer that question but let out a gasp and pointed toward the sky. Ryo looked up and saw with dread that Ken was falling from the sky. "No!" He gasped as he rushed to catch the boy.

Ken landed in Ryo's arms. "Hey Ryo! I found you!" He said with a smile. "He looked around. Where are we?"

"Ken! What is going on?"

"Well," he said looking sheepish, "I thought that you might need some help, and since I've got this," he held out his Digivice, "I thought that maybe I could."

"Ken, you weren't supposed to come here. Now I have to worry about protecting you as well as saving the Digiworld."

"You don't have to be so mean about it. I can help too you know."

"You don't understand. Sam would kill me if you got hurt."

"Whatever."

Suddenly, there was another light as another child fell from the sky. It was Tai. Ryo groaned. He wasn't particularly fond of the boy. He knew it wasn't fair, but it still stung how Agumon just abandoned him for his true partner. It was no fault of either of them, he just felt a little bitter and used. Ken saw Agumon running over toward them. "Hey guys!" He yelled.

When Tai landed, he brushed himself off, almost accustomed to the rough landings associated with coming to the Digiworld. "Agumon!" He cried happily as he embraced his friend.

With the whole group there, Gennai explained that Diaboromon hadn't been defeated completely, and that there was a copy of him running around Infinity Mountain.

"We need a plan of attack," Tai said to Ryo. Ken had long gone to bed. Ryo had refused to let him really participate in the meeting.

Ryo just grunted and said something about going to bed also. When he got up and left, Tai looked at Agumon, "Was it something I said?" He asked. The two then left to go to sleep.

The next morning Ryo and Veemon left without Tai. They wandered all over the village aimlessly. Finally he asked, "Veemon, why did you guys bring me here? I mean you have Tai and Agumon. You don't need me."

Veemon seemed to think for a moment. "You know Ryo, I think that it's because even though Tai and Agumon are strong, this is something that only you can do."

"You really think so?"

"Yeah!"

"Then, let's go take care of business. Come on, it's time to climb Infinity Mountain."

The pair climbed up the mountain and battled Diaboromon. It was surprisingly easy. Veemon defeated the evil digimon without much effort compared to Tai, Matt, Agumon, and Gabumon. It was puzzling. That was, it was puzzling until Millenniummon appeared. Diaboromon had just been a lure to get him back into the Digital World.

Millenniummon laughed as he caused a large explosion that cleaved the Digital World in two, warped the passage of time, and turned Tai and Agumon to stone.

Again, Ryo set off on an adventure to save the Digital World, but this time he had the help of Ken and his newfound partner Wormmon. The rift separated them, but they worked toward retrieving ancient Digi-eggs that contained powers that he did not understand. Finally, they both found a way into the universe that Millenniummon made where they encountered him in another form, Moon=Millenniummon. Ryo thought that this evil digimon had to be the strangest being he had ever met. It would insult Ken, but seemed to warmly compliment him. He could not understand.

After a long battle they managed to win. Everything began to repair itself, Tai and Agumon returned to normal. But, as they left Millenniummon's dimension, something went wrong. Millenniummon in his normal form again, appeared out of nowhere. He threw some dark things toward Ryo. Ryo cringed, readying himself for the impact, but it never came. Instead he heard Ken cry, "Ryo!" And saw the young boy throw himself in front of him. Ryo watched helplessly as one of the dark things burrowed itself into Ken's neck. "Ahh!" He cried in extreme pain.

Ryo wanted to die. Ken was like a younger brother to him, and he had promised Sam, his best friend that he would protect him. He failed. He, Veemon, and Wormmon carried the unconcious Ken back to Gennai's house. The old man explained that Ken had been infected with some kind of dark spore, but that was all he knew. He had no way of removing it either. "Ken will just have to learn how to overcome it." He said sadly.

That wasn't the only bad news for Ryo. He also found out that Veemon really wasn't his partner. "Veemon was close to your emotional output so I was able to route some of the Digidestined power into your Digivice," Gennai explained. Veemon who had known all along stood behind Gennai looking sad. Ryo felt betrayed. He was beginning to despise the Digital World. All it brought him was sadness, pain, and betrayal. Veemon had never answered the question about whether Ryo was his true partner, but the two of them had fought so many battles and gone through so much together. But, in the end it didn't matter.

After about 3 weeks, Ken was making good improvement, and Gennai told them that they needed to go back. "The time warp that Millenniummon made has almost fully reversed itself. Time in the Digital World will begin to pass as it does in the Real World. We don't want anyone to notice that you're missing."

Tai and Ryo nodded. As much as Ryo had originally disliked the guy, he had grown to like him over the past couple weeks as they cared for Ken together. He practically adopted Ken as his own little brother. But Gennai shook his head, "No Tai, I need you to stay. There is one last task that I require of you. But Ryo, you should take Ken home."

Ryo sighed. He shook Tai's hand goodbye and left through the portal that Gennai had ready for him.

Arriving back in the Real World, Ryo and Ken landed back in the room that Ken and Sam shared. Hearing a loud noise, Sam came inside. When he saw Ken, he gave a cry, "Ryo! What happened?"

After the two had tucked Ken into his bed, Ryo began to explain. It was hard, but he needed to let Sam know. When he finished, Sam was clenching his fists, "So a digimon did this to him? Ryo, how could you let this happen?"

Ryo looked ashamed, "I don't know Sam. Everything happened so fast. I know that you have every right to be mad at me."

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, "No, I'm not mad at you. Sometimes things just happen. I wish that I had been there too, maybe I could have saved both of you."


	9. The Life of Ryo Akiyama Part II

**Here is part two of Ryo's memories! This is all that I'm going to post. I'll see you in March! Please Review!**

**I don't own Digimon, I just like to play with the characters.**

* * *

The memory faded to a couple weeks later. Ryo was over at Sam and Ken's house, helping take care of Ken. He was the only one who could actually do it properly since Gennai had taught him exactly what he needed to do. Ken had been making massive improvement. He could now speak, very softly, and could sit up for a short amount of time. "Ryo," he called. Ryo walked over to listen to him better.

"Yeah Ken?" He asked.

"On the computer, there's an email. Sam told me about it earlier. It's talking about a tournament. You have to take a quiz and depending upon your answers, you'll be entered. Ryo, I want you to enter, since I can't."

"Ken, what are you talking about? Why not have Sam enter?"

"Well, it's not really his thing."

"I guess that's true. But why me?"

"Please Ryo, I don't want it to go to waste." Ken started to get upset.

Wanting to calm down his injured friend Ryo responded, "Ok, sorry Ken. I'll take the quiz."

He sat down at the computer and began to answer questions. As he began answering the questions, he increasingly became suspicious that this wasn't just a quiz for any kid. It was one for a kid who had been around digimon. He had half a mind to stop, but what did it matter, it was just a quiz.

It ended up being more than a quiz. When he finished, Ryo was pulled into the Digital World again. This time he encountered not only Gennai, but also Azulongmon, one of the four sovereign digimon that ruled the Digital World. There was a problem. All the other sovereigns had become corrupt and were planning the destruction of the Digital World. The dragon needed help. The quiz was an entry for a tournament to determine who was the strongest. Whoever won the tournament would become the partner of Azulongmon and save the world. The idea of getting a partner, especially one so powerful, was a tempting idea to Ryo. He had said that he wouldn't have anything more to do with the Digital World, but if he would get a partner out of this, then maybe it would make everything worth it.

The other kids that were entered in the tournament were jerks. He couldn't believe that they were even being considered to be partners. Sure, he and the Digidestined, had their differences, but they at least were essentially good people.

He fought his way through level after level of the tournament, even facing the Digidestined and their digimon. It was difficult. He had to face Veemon again, and even use him as an ally. He also had to make decisions that he never wanted to make. At one point, he was required to sacrifice several digimon in order to beat several of the enemy digimon. It hadn't been easy to make that choice. All the digimon were his friends and trusted him. It made him question who he had become.

During a pause between the rounds of the tournament, he looked at the reflection of himself in a mirror. Who was he? He didn't look any different, but something had changed. It was like something on the inside was slowly breaking. The worst part was that Gennai had set up communication with Ken back in the Real World. His friend who was like his younger brother was watching as he began to morph into an unrecognizable person.

As awful as he felt, he also began to feel a certain level of pride. He had beaten the Digidestined. Sure, the digimon were challenging, but he was stronger and a better strategist. Finally, he battled Tai and WarGreymon and won. He was so excited. At last he would have his own partner. Maybe, he would even join the Digidestined.

Then came some of the most devastating news that he had heard in his life. He remembered the sad look on Tai's face as he broke the news. "Ryo," he said sadly, "this tournament wasn't for real. I didn't know it until it started, but it was really a training exercise. You were always supposed to win."

Ryo gave him a strange look. "What?" He asked.

Azulongmon nodded, "It is true Ryo. You are the only one who has ever defeated Millenniummon. You are needed to defeat Moon=Millenniummon again. I have managed to open a portal to where his base is located. You will have to go through the door soon. You best get everything you need in order for the trip."

Ryo didn't say anything. He just clenched his fists, nodded and walked away.

Tai ran after him. "Ryo!" He gasped as they entered Ryo's quarters. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know when they asked me to help in this tournament that this is what they planned to do!"

"Save it Tai. Sure you didn't know, but you didn't stop it or tell me when you did find out."

"Ryo! I don't know! It's just that everything Azulongmon said is true. We need you, the fate of the Digital World and Real World depend on you. I knew that after the last time you were done. You would tell us to find someone else. But Millenniummon wants you. He made it very clear that he wouldn't let anyone near enough to battle him unless it was you."

Ryo snorted, "Don't worry Tai, I'll do my duty. Just go away. I don't want to take anymore."

Tai tried to glean a response again, but Ryo remained silent. When the time came, he walked willingly to his fate.

Moon=Millenniummon seemed gleeful that he was facing Ryo again. It was strange because Ryo had defeated him twice already, but the monster seemed to be a glutton for pain and kept reviving himself to get some more.

A fierce battle ensued between the two. As it progressed, Ryo seemed to be winning. But, just as victory seemed eminent the evil digimon cackled. "Ryo you will never defeat me! We are two sides of a coin, the yang to my yin. As long as you live I will always be there. Come fly with me in the world of time!"

Suddenly, the floating island base exploded and Ryo's vision went dark.

* * *

When he opened his eyes again, he was in a strange world. The dichotomy running through Ryo's mind at the moment was weird. This was a memory, so he could remember all of the prior events, but he was now remembering a time where he had lost his memory. A purple dragon with gold and red looked down at him. His memory of the present identified the digimon as Monodramon, but his memory self did not know who he was, so he recoiled at the dragon's touch.

"Hello! Have you come to save us? My name is Monodramon! Who are you?"

"Ryo."

"Well hello Ryo! Come on let's go see ENIAC! He's the world's main computer." He pulled Ryo up to his feet. "Come on! Don't be shy! We've been waiting for you!"

Ryo moved along with Monodramon as he pulled him across a desolate wasteland toward a building with a giant E etched into it. He led the boy to a chamber where he met the ENIAC, the world's first computer system.

When he met ENIAC, several things became clear. First, the version of himself that was brought in front of the computer had massive memory loss because of the horrific events that happened during the tournament. Second, Millenniummon had a new plan and was trying to take control of the timeline by destroying ENIAC. Third, Millenniummon had blasted himself into the future while Ryo had been blasted into the past. Finally, this was the point at which Monodramon became his partner. ENIAC told him that it was necessary to defeat Millenniummon. Ryo was given a D-arc and sent out to save the world again.

Millenniummon's power to warp time and space caused many alternate realities to appear that involved many of the Digidestined and powerful new characters who called themselves Tamers. After rescuing each, their digimon would join his party, and help him defeat the enemies, as he had done in previous adventures. There was even an awkward moment when he met Veemon and his future partner, Davis. However, the event seemed to pass straight over Ryo's head. His mind still couldn't grasp the horrific memories of his past, which kept him from speaking.

Millenniummon kept putting up a fight. Eventually, he infected ENIAC, but thankfully there was a back up computer, the Atanasoff-Berry. Millenniummon cloned some of the most powerful members of each group of Digidestined and Tamers in order to defeat the computer. Ryo was set upon the task of defeating those clones. He fought copies of Takato, Davis, and Tai.

Once the clones were defeated, ENIAC was able to get rid of the virus. The computer said that it was time to defeat Millenniummon and get rid of this problem once and for all. Unfortunately, Ryo had to sacrifice several digimon to give ENIAC enough power to keep the door open.

Once he went through the portal, Ryo landed in Millenniummon's base. After an arduous journey to the center, they finally got to Millenniummon who had changed form to ZeedMillenniummon. The battle that ensued was fierce. Eventually, defeat seemed inevitable. The force that he had assembled was not strong enough. All hope seemed lost.

Millenniummon began to speak. "I can never be defeated! If only you had joined me Ryo. We would have been the most powerful partners in the world!"

Ryo's eyes opened in shock. And Monodramon shouted, "No! It can't be! I'm his partner."

"My destiny with Ryo has been written in the stars. There is nothing you can do about it. I will go on forever!"

Monodramon looked sad for a moment, but then he looked up with a determined face. "No, Ryo! I know how to defeat him! I must combine with him! If you weaken him, I will be able to do it!"

Ryo nodded and set their party to work. Reinvigorated, they managed to defeat Millenniummon's minions and weaken the god digimon himself. Once the evil digimon's strength was sapped, Monodramon looked at Ryo. "Goodbye Ryo. We will meet again someday. I'm going to fuse with Millenniummon now. It's the only way we will truly be partners. It will seal away his soul eternally." Monodramon's body began to glow and turned into data. It shot toward Millenniummon. The evil digimon's body began to glow and turned into a data also when Monodramon's data hit his. There seemed to be a fight for a while between Monodramon's gold colored data and Millenniummon's deep purple data. Finally, the gold seemed to succeed, fully integrating itself within the dark purple. Then the glowing mass began to shrink until all that was left was a purple and gold-banded digiegg.

"M-Monodramon," Ryo cried, saying the first word that he had said besides his name since his fight with Tai at the tournament. He ran over and picked up the egg. Sobbing along the way. He went back through the portal, and ended up back in the past in ENIAC's world.

The computer sent all the digimon who helped Ryo back to their own dimensions until Ryo was the only one left. The computer spoke, "Ryo, you have had a long and hard life for one so young. I am going to give you a decision. You may return to the world that you originally came from or you may start anew in a new world." Two portals opened up. "The one on the right is to your original world. The one on the left is to the world of the Tamers. Make your decision wisely."

Ryo stared at the portals, gripping tightly onto the digiegg. He now had his memory back. The events of the battles had brought it all back to him. He still didn't speak; his heart was too grieved from sadness of the events that just occurred as well as the rush of memories from his past. He was done with the old world. It had done nothing but hurt him. All that the people there would do would hurt him. And now, he didn't just have himself to think about. Monodramon had sacrificed himself once to the greater good, and the people in the old world would just sacrifice him again. He would miss his parents and his friends Sam and Ken. He hoped that Ken would never become that evil Digimon Emperor that he saw in one of the rouge realities. But he had faith, Sam would protect him and keep his younger brother from succumbing to the dark spore. He had to leave his old life. He couldn't continue living the way that they wanted him to.

With a nod toward ENIAC, Ryo walked toward the left. Just as he was about to leave, ENIAC said, "Don't worry Ryo, you will see Monodramon again someday. Even now, I hear his heart inside the digiegg now. You will see. His will is stronger than you know."

With that Ryo went through the portal to the Tamers' world and left his old life behind. When he entered the portal, everything went black.

* * *

The blackness that overtook Ryo was deep. Everything was silent, and all he could do was relive the past horrors he had been subjected to. He was about to give up hope when he felt something warm engulf him. The darkness began shifting toward light, and the silence was broken by a gentle steady beep. The light became brighter, and he felt someone patting his head calling his name gently, "Ryo, Ryo."

The light became even brighter until he opened his eyes because it was almost blinding.

He found himself in a hospital at night. A monitor beside him was beeping, measuring the beat of his heart. His surroundings were the only things convincing him that he wasn't dead, that and the throbbing pain throughout his body. He looked around for the owner of the voice. To his left, he saw a girl with red curly hair pulled into a ponytail. She had to be about the same age that he was, around 11 or 12. Standing beside her was a purple rabbit type digimon.

He looked at them in fear, afraid that they were going to pull him back into the Digital World again against his will. The pair gave him a sad look. "Ryo," the girl said, "please don't be afraid of us. We didn't come here to hurt you. We came to help."

"Wh-who are you?" His voice sounded strange, horse from being unused.

"My name is Becky and this is my partner Annalismon. ENIAC sent us."

"Where am I?"

"You're in the hospital right now. You appeared in this world unconscious and were taken to the hospital when you were found."

Memories of his choice to go to a new world came to the forefront of his mind. "Are you a Digidestined?"

"Yes... but," Becky added when she saw Ryo recoil, "like I said, we came to help you."

Ryo snorted skeptically.

"No really. I know how you were treated. Trust me. If anyone understands, Annalismon and I would."

"Ryo," the digimon started, "I have served the Sovereign digimon my whole life. I've trained and spent my life on what seemed like pointless dangerous quests just to be a protector. Well that, and errand runner. And Becky got pulled into the whole thing with me when we united. We've been condemned to a life of solitude to keep the secret things that the Sovereign need protecting."

"What are you going to do to help?"

Becky sighed, "I'm afraid that this is the part that you're not going to like. See our main quest was to retrieve your digiegg and take it back to the Digiworld." Seeing the look of sadness and betrayal pass through Ryo's face, she explained, "I know it doesn't seem fair, but you need to think of what's best for you, Monodramon, and the Real World. There is a very volatile digimon contained in that digiegg right now. Monodramon and Millenniummon's minds must learn to coexist as one. If it hatches here, you won't be able to control the digimon that comes out. Monodramon needs to learn control. Don't worry; you two will be reunited when the time is right. Besides, you need to adjust to your new life here anyways."

Annalismon added, "Those were our orders, but it was supposed to be done in stealth, but neither of us could do that to you. You've been used and tricked enough. You deserve the truth, so we woke you up."

Becky smiled, "That and the hope that maybe we could provide you a little bit of comfort before you have to face the world tomorrow."

Ryo shook his head, "I don't want tell the stories, they're too painful to relive."

"Don't worry," Annalismon replied, "ENIAC already showed us. We just want to give you comfort."

"I don't want to relive them, but I can't stop them." Ryo said sadly.

Becky looked at Annalismon and nodded. Becky spoke up timidly, "I know that you're not the biggest fan of Azulongmon, but he is a good digimon. He wants try and repay you for his deception." Becky took a small bag of powder out of her back pocket. "He gave this to us to give to you. It's a powder that will make you forget your past life, until the right time comes for you to deal with it. If you want us to, all we have to do is sprinkle some over you while you sleep and tomorrow when you wake up, you won't remember anything. Annalismon and I will go back to our world and you can begin your new life here."

Ryo pondered this option for a few moments. Finally, he said, "Ok I'll do it. I can't handle it all right now."

Becky and Annalismon nodded. They went to go sit down in chairs, to wait for him to fall asleep when Ryo said, "Wait, I know this is a weird request, but I don't want to be alone. Stay with me until I fall asleep?"

"Sure," Annalismon said, "Do you want me to do what I did for Becky when she would get too frightened to fall asleep? It always work like a charm during tough battles when she first came to the Digiworld."

"Ok?"

Annalismon laughed at his timid response. She walked over to the bed and laid down, careful to avoid the wires. She then wrapped Ryo in a cocoon with her ears. The boy was pulled close to her, his ear against her chest. He heard the steady thump of her heart and her slow breathing. It was very soothing. Becky scooted her chair close to the bed, sat back down, and then reached out and grabbed Ryo's hand.

"Always know," the girl said, "that while you may forget this ever happened, you are never really alone."

Ryo laid in silence comforted by the presence of the two. The visions that haunted him before weren't as scary. Slowly he drifted back asleep.


	10. The Things They Carried

**I'm back! I hope everyone had a spectacular Easter! Review and let me know what you guys think!**

**As usual, I don't own Digimon, or anything else that you may recognize.**

* * *

The Tamers all crowed around Ryo's unconscious body. The Digidestined tried to get in close too, but Cyberdramon blocked their way. Tai walked forward and looked straight into the digimon's eyes. Or at least where he thought they were. He couldn't exactly tell with the armor he was wearing.

The cyborg growled defensively. "Don't come any closer. I know what you did. Ryo doesn't want to see you."

The brown-haired boy continued to look at the digimon, seeming to have a silent conversation with him.

Finally, Tai looked at the ground ashamed, "He's right. Come on guys. Let's go over here for a while."

The younger Digidestined all looked confused except TK, Kari, and Ken.

"What are you talking about?" Cody asked.

Tai didn't respond, so Matt did for him. "Cody, we as a group have made some decisions that were, I wouldn't say bad, but not ideal. I think that you've learned that not everything is black and white, and us older Digidestined have had to make some difficult decisions. In essence, the Sovereign took advantage of Ryo and tricked him so that he would train to fight Millenniummon, a powerful evil digimon that only he could defeat. When we found out, none of us told him. We wanted to, but we couldn't find an alternate solution. Millenniummon was too dangerous and powerful."

Ken was sitting on the ground staring into space. Davis walked over, "Ken? What's wrong?"

"Ryo is here. I can't believe it. After all these years, part of me thought that he was dead."

"Ken, what are you talking about? Who is this Ryo guy?"

"He was friends with my brother and me before Sam died. He went to the Digiworld too. I helped him save the world when that black spore got imbedded into my neck. We were fighting Millenniummon like Matt said. Ryo was like another big brother to me. Then he went to this tournament. In fact, I convinced him to go to because Gennai told me to. Then it turned out to just be something to train him to fight Millenniummon again. When he went to fight that monster again, his island lair blew up. No one could find Ryo again. I blamed myself because I was the one who convinced him to do the tournament even though he didn't want to go back to the Digiworld."

"Ken, it's not your fault. How could you know?"

"Davis, you don't understand I blamed myself when he was gone and when Sam died. That grief was what pushed me to become the Digimon Emperor. I just need some time to process."

"Ok." Davis sat down beside his friend and to provide him companionship as he stared blankly into space.

* * *

The Tamers crowded around Ryo's body and watched intently. He twitched around as he relived his memories. It was terrible to watch.

Finally, Rika couldn't take it, "Ryo! Stop! Whatever is going on, stop! Wake up!" She shook him.

"Rika, stop." Henry said grabbing her.

But it did nothing. He still laid lost in own thoughts. Giving up hope, Rika whispered his name again, fearing for her friend's life, "Ryo, please."

Suddenly, his hand grabbed her hand that was still resting on his shoulder. "Hey Wildcat," he said opening his eyes.

"Ryo!" Shouted Takato relieved.

Everyone's attention was drawn back to the boy. He got up slowly and shakily walked toward the Digidestined. He approached Ken. Ken stood up and tensed. "Ken…"

"R-R-Ryo?"

Both had an intense look on their face, one of great emotion. Finally, Ryo couldn't handle it anymore. He brought Ken into a tight embrace. Tears began running down Ken's face as his emotions overwhelmed him. Pulling back, Ryo asked, "Ken what's wrong? Why are you crying?"

"You're alive! I can't believe it. You are standing right here in front of my eyes."

"Ken, I'm so sorry for everything that happened. For not protecting you and then just abandoning you."

"Why didn't you come home?"

"I just couldn't, not after everything that had happened. I was just a kid. I wasn't ready for anything that happened. I tried to stay strong, but eventually, I needed to get away."

"Your parents kept looking for you, but there was no trace. It was horrible lying to them. We all missed you so much, Sam especially. He was the only one who knew the truth you know. I told him since he knew about the Digital World. I think he hated me after that."

Ryo winced. "I'm sure that isn't true. The Sam I knew loved you to death. Anyway, how are they, my parents?"

"They miss you a lot, but you know, life does manage to go on somehow."

"And Sam?"

Ken grimaced, "Ryo, Sam is dead."

"What? Wait no, he can't be."

"It wasn't long after you disappeared. He got hit by a car."

Ryo sat down on the ground, overwhelmed by grief from both his past as well as this recent news. "I don't understand. How could he die?"

A flash of rage rivaling that from his Digimon Emperor days overtook the boy genius. "How could you leave us Ryo? He was devastated. Then you couldn't even go to his funeral after he died."

Taken aback by his friend's ferocity, Ryo studdered, "I- I have no other answer for that other than what I said. Ken, can you ever forgive me?"

There was complete silence following Ryo's desperate plea. For a moment it seemed like Ken was going to hit his friend. But, slowly the rage faded from Ken's eyes. It was replaced by a deep grief. The one that had tormented him for the past few years. "Can I forgive you? No, can you forgive me. It's my fault this all happened. I shouldn't have listened when they told me to get you to take that survey. I knew you didn't want to go back. And, ultimately, that's the reason we lost you. I ruined Sam's last days and I ruined your life."

"Ken…"

"And not only that, but then I became the Digimon Emperor. I forgot entirely who I was and became a person who I hate."

"Wait, Ken, you became that?" Ryo looked at his feet. He had desperately hoped that would never happen. The Digimon Emperor Ken had been one of the most horrible things that Millenniummon had tormented him with.

"Yeah, I know I'm despicable."

Ryo looked up at him, hurt deep in his eyes, "Ken, no, you're not. I am. You took that spore for me, and I was supposed to take care of you. I was supposed to protect you and I failed! I failed you and I failed Sam! If I hadn't gone away, I could have stopped this."

"Stop!" Jeri yelled at the pair. "Passing around blame, even if it is on yourself, doesn't do any good. If I had let blame continue to consume me, the D-Reaper would still exist. The past is in the past. You need to forgive each other and move one. Sure it affects us, but we need to be present and look toward the future."

"Wow Jeri," Ryo said with a slight smile, "when did you get so wise?"

"Well you know…" Jeri blushed at the compliment.

Ryo took a deep breath and walked toward the group of older Digidestined. He addressed all of them. "You guys hurt me in the past. You hurt me a lot. I know that in some ways, you did what you had to. But, that doesn't mean that I'm just going to brush it off. If I have to, I will work with you. I understand that you are powerful. But I need time. I haven't had my memories for 4 years now. While I am now more mature and emotionally equipped to handle them, I haven't actually had time to deal with them. Like I said, I will work with you, but I'm not ready to forgive or trust you yet."

Tai nodded. "Ryo, know that we are sorry for what happened. If you need our help, please, know that we'll give it. I hope someday we'll be able to be friends again. I liked it when we were."

Ryo turned from them and proceeded to Becky and Annalismon. "Thank you," he said, "for being one of the few who cared about me beyond what I could do for the Digiworld. Thank you for holding my hand through the hard times, and for giving me a choice to remember. I imagine you had orders to make me forget. Not only for that, but for being honest the whole time. To you, I wasn't some pawn, but a person. I guess that's probably why I was able to trust you back in the Real World. Deep down I knew you were good."

Becky smiled, "It's what every person deserves. But it takes being intentional."

"Ryo, what the heck is going on?" Rika asked angrily. She had almost lost her friend, and now nothing he was saying made sense. She wanted answers.

"Don't worry, I'll explain to you guys when we get back. Trust me Wildcat, I'll need someone to help me hash this out. While Cyberdramon is my partner, he's not the best conversationalist."

"Umm Ok…"

Gennai came up to Ryo. "Are you ready to leave?"

Ryo looked to Takato, who looked to Davis, who looked to Tai. All three nodded. "Ok, let's follow Azulongmon."

* * *

The group walked for a long time, in relative silence. After all they had seen, there wasn't much to talk about at the moment.

Becky wondered about the prophecy. If it was coming to pass, then this wasn't the only emotional hurdle that they would have to pass. They were quickly becoming a group. Ryo had discovered his past, and now there was only one person missing from the party of Japanese Digidestined and Tamers. She knew if it was time, the group would swell, but the Tamers were yet not complete. Would another emotional hurdle be passed again today?

TK was a bit further back in the group, among the Tamers. He wanted the chance to meet these new people. He fell into step with Jeri. He smiled at her brightly and said, "Hello! I wanted to formally introduce myself. I'm TK, and this is my partner, Patamon." Patamon waved a paw as he fluttered over TK's shoulder for a second.

"Hi, my name is Jeri, and this little fluff ball is…"

"Calumon! That's my name!" The little white and purple digimon declared. He jumped off of Jeri's shoulder onto TK's. He looked at Patamon, "Do you want to play?"

Patamon looked at the strange digimon with surprise. "Umm not now, you know we're kinda on a mission, but maybe later?"

"You're no fun! I'm going over to Guilmon. He's tons of fun, even when he's on a mission." With that, the little digimon scampered away.

Patamon, taken aback by Calumon's behavior, whispered to his partner, "TK, I don't think I've ever met a digimon that strange in my life."

He laughed at his partner's response. Calumon was like a hyper little kid. "Is that your partner?" he asked.

Jeri's face fell. "No," she said quietly, "he isn't."

TK instantly noticed the change in her disposition and wondered what he had done wrong. "Oh, sorry, is there something wrong?"

Jeri shook her head a little and said, "Huh? No, there isn't. I'm sorry, you didn't do anything wrong. I'm just still trying to deal with stuff."

TK noticed her evasion of exactly what stuff she was trying to deal with. He assumed that it had something to do with her partner. Maybe she didn't have one yet.

Suddenly, Jeri froze. For a couple hours the group had been following Azulongmon back the way that they had gone. Takato looked at Jeri and asked, "What's wrong?" But then, realizing where they were, he tensed up and gulped. Sadness came over Jeri's eyes.

TK looked over at the only familiar face, Ryo, and asked, "What's going on?"

The boy didn't say anything. He just ignored the Digidestined.

Henry, humoring his teammate's dislike of the Digidestined, sighed and answered, "Jeri lost her partner, Leomon here. There are a lot of bad memories here."

Jeri sank to the ground and began to cry. Takato walked over and put an arm around her. "Jeri, I'm sorry. I wish there was something I could do to make this ok. Talk to me please."

"Takato, as much as I appreciate you trying, you just don't understand. The memories are too strong here, and all I can think about is Leomon and Megidramon. It's too horrible."

"Jeri, I never meant for that to happen. I'm so sorry." Takato back off and sat down away from the group, feeling guilty for contributing to her pain.

TK felt bad for the girl. He knew what it was like to lose a partner. He walked over. "Jeri?"

She looked up at the blond. "What?" She asked harshly. "Going to tell me to move on, or tell me that I'm not fit to be a Tamer?"

TK put his hand on her back. "No, not at all. You should be sad. You know, I lost my partner once."

Jeri looked up at him, "What do you mean? You're partner is there right beside you."

TK sighed, "Let me tell you a story. I wouldn't imagine that all those TV shows that we're supposedly starring in are really accurate. See, I was really young when I first went to the Digiworld. I was 8, so not as young a Suzie, but I was still pretty immature. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Kari, who was in the same grade, was more mature. Anyways, when we first came to the Digiworld, we fought this very evil digimon, Devimon. He wanted to take over the world."

"We were told that we had to rid the Digiworld of evil before we could go home, so we all fought against him. Increasingly, Devimon pursued power through the powers of darkness to try and defeat us. He tried to keep us from getting our digimon to digivolve. Apparently there was a prophecy. We were supposed to defeat him, specifically me."

"Finally, we went to try and finish Devimon off for good on top of Infinity Mountain. He used the powers of darkness to make himself so powerful, it seemed impossible to beat him. Then he went to grab me, but Patamon got in the way. Somehow in that moment, Patamon was finally able to tap into my energy and digivolve. It became apparent why he was the one who had to do it. He digivolved into Angemon. You know the whole angel beats the demon thing. It was an intense battle, and I was so worried. Then, just as hope seemed to be lost, Angemon used the power of the digivices to strengthen himself to make the final blow." TK's voice broke as he remembered the painful memories that he so often tried to avoid. He had never told any of the younger Digidestined this part beyond Kari. Cody only knew because Matt had told him. He felt their eyes on him as he spoke.

"Th-The problem was that it took all of Angemon's strength to make that blow powerful enough. As Devimon began to delete, he called Angemon a fool for making the sacrifice. I watched Angemon delete before my eyes. See, we didn't know that much about digimon at the time. I thought it would be the last time I saw him. It was almost like the biggest stroke of luck that I was able to hold Patamon's digiegg in my arms."

Jeri looked up at the boy. "I know it probably seems like my sob story is nothing compared to yours, but I truly do understand." He bent down and hugged the crying girl.

She sobbed into his shoulder, "I just want him to come back. It's not fair!"

"He should come back. He's a digimon. They never really die." TK tried to soothe.

"I'm afraid that it doesn't work like that here," Henry said sadly.

TK shook his head, "No, I refuse to give up hope."

Rika came over and slapped TK, "Stop it! False hope is just as bad as lying to her."

"Rika!" Jeri scolded angrily, "Stop. Maybe TK does know something."

"Jeri, Leomon's data is gone. Beelzemon absorbed his data."

TK had a thoughtful look on his face, "Hmm… I've never seen a digimon absorb data before, but I bet that if he would give it back, Leomon could be reborn."

Calumon smiled as he landed on Jeri's shoulder, "I bet Impmon would give it back!"

"Renemon," Rika asked, "Is that possible?"

"I don't know Rika. I've never heard of anything like it. Digimon absorb data because they want to get stronger, they don't just give it up."

"I guess we won't know until we see Impmon. He's in the Real World with Ai and Mako right now." Jeri sighed.

* * *

Janyu Wong sat in a chair at a computer in Hypnos. He was desperately trying to analyze the signal of the Digital Portal. He hoped to be able to manipulate the signal so that they would be able to send the children some help. Henry and Suzie weighed heavily on his mind.

Yamaki walked in the door. "We investigated the scene of the energy surge. All we were able to find was this." He held up a laptop computer with a strange looking screen.

"Let me take a closer look at that." Janyu said curiously. He took a closer look and gasped, "Yamaki! This is a picture of the Digital World!"

"I know. We looked a bit into the owner of the computer by looking through some of the files. Apparently the owner is an Izzy from Odibah. He knows a bit about Digimon, but that's all we can tell from the names of the documents saved on this. We've tried getting into his files, but this guy has iron clad security procedures. We haven't been able to break them yet. This guy, whoever he is, is a genius. If he applied, I'd hire him on the spot."

Janyu looked confused, "An Izzy from Odibah? That sounds familiar. Isn't that a character from the kid's Digimon television show? Is he really real?"

Yamaki shrugged, "At this point, I've stopped asking myself if things like that."

"I suppose you're right."

"Anyways," Yamaki continued, "We decided to see if all the Tamers were gone. They are." Janyu's heart sank, "Except for two."

"Did any of youz need a hero?" Beelzemon stood in the doorway.

"Yeah, are you ready to go back to the Digital World?" Janyu asked with a smile.


	11. Speak of the Devil

**Hey guys! Here's the newest chapter. I'd like to apologize really quick for the lack of battles right now. Don't worry, right now things are getting lined up. After a couple more chapters, there will be more battles, and a better focus for what's going on. **

**Thanks to TrioF for faithfully reviewing.**

**Please review and let me know what you guys are thinking!**

**I don't own digimon or anything else you may recognize.**

* * *

TK helped Jeri up. "I'm sure you'll find Leomon's digiegg someday," he said with an encouraging smile.

"Thanks, I needed that pick me up. You're so hopeful."

TK beamed. "That's why I'm the Digidestined of Hope. Even in the darkest of times, we always have hope, and it's what brings us through!"

Davis walked over to the pair, "TA, stop flirting! Azulongmon won't wait all day."

"Davis, I'm surprised at you." TK replied smugly. "Shouldn't you be happy I'm talking with a girl that isn't Kari?" Jeri gave him a confused look. But TK just winked, waiting for his friend's outburst.

He didn't have to wait long. "What do you mean talking to Kari?" Davis exploded. "I'm Kari's only guy and you know it!" The goggle head stormed off.

TK laughed and turned to Jeri, "Sorry, it's always fun to rile Davis up about his crush on Kari. I wasn't trying to lay any moves on you."

Kari who was standing nearby giggled. "TK, did you seriously just say that? Since when have you ever had any moves?"

"Well…"

"Don't worry!" Matt interjected, "I've got a whole course lined up for him."

"Don't forget I'm going to be helping too!" Tai added.

Kari grimaced, "Oh brother."

Azulongmon looked down at Jeri, "Are you ready young one?" She nodded in reply. "Then off we go! We still have some distance to go before we're at a Digi-port. Zhuqiaomon destroyed all of the ones in his quadrant at some point."

The group reassembled and started to walk again. Izzy fell into stride with Becky. He was very curious about her. "So…" he began awkwardly. For some reason, he felt weird talking to her. One day she was his biology lab partner, and now she was someone who was a mystery.

She turned and smiled at him, "Yes Izzy?"

Panicking for a second, he searched for something to say. "Umm… what they were saying about downloading data. It's interesting, I've never seen it before."

"Hmm… well neither have I. But I do know that it used to be an intrinsic part of the ancient Digital World. I suppose that Zhuqliaomon restored the Digital World to that state, especially if he was trying to get strong digimon to save the Digital World. I imagine it wouldn't be far outside of his ability especially since this whole area is the oldest part of the Digital World."

Izzy stared at her mouth agape. "How did you know that?"

"What?"

"All of that!"

Becky smiled, "You'd be surprised what I know. There are benefits from working for the Sovereign."

From that moment on, Izzy continued to try and pick Becky's brain for the secrets of the Digital World, but she remained frustratingly silent. Finally annoyed, Annalismon answered, "You know Izzy, maybe Becky is being silent for a reason. Maybe she's already in trouble with the Sovereign for letting you guys know too much."

Izzy was in shock from the digimon's abrupt answer. Becky scowled at her partner, "Annalismon, that wasn't very nice."

"Yeah well he wasn't being very respectful, and I have a headache. Zhuqiaomon's mind control doesn't exactly feel amazing. I really need a nap at the moment."

Becky laughed and hugged her partner, "Gosh, I'm so happy to be with you right now, I can't even be angry at you for being grumpy."

"Izzy?" Tentomon asked, "Would you be that happy to see me if a rouge Sovereign digimon kidnapped me and we were separated for a year?"

"Of course Tentomon, of course."

Suddenly Hawkmon, who was flying high in the sky to scout ahead, shouted, "Look ahead! There's the ocean!" Sure enough, distant on the horizon was the ocean.

As they drew near however, something strange happened. A beam of light came streaming down from the Real World. The group stopped in awe. "What just happened?" Takato asked.

"Something has just come from the Real World," responded Azulongmon. "Or rather, someone."

As if on cue, the someone revved his engine and began driving towards them. It took the Tamers all of a couple seconds to recognize the figure.

"Beelzemon," Jeri breathed.

"Well, speak of the devil!" Kazu said, "Wow, I guess literally!"

Rika walked over and smacked the boy over the head. "You dimwit. Can't you be a little more sensitive?" She stormed past him and walked over to Jeri to see if she was ok.

Kenta looked at his friend, "Did _Rika_ just tell you to be more sensitive?" He asked, emphasizing the Digimon Queen's name.

"She just did. What's becoming of the world?" Kazu asked.

"Can it you two!" Rika retorted.

The group met him at the shore of the ocean. The Tamers were happy to see him. They told him how they had met their new friends and the news about Becky, Annalismon, Zhuqliaomon's madness and disappearance, and the emergence of Ryo's memories. The Digidestined lingered to the side, staring curiously at the new digimon. However, TK, Kari, Becky, Patamon, Gatomon, and Annalismon didn't seem as thrilled.

"What's wrong TK?" Cody asked.

"There's something about him… I don't know what." TK responded.

"I do," Gatomon replied, "he's a demon lord digimon."

"What?" Gasped Kari, "Don't the Tamers know that? Why are they his friends?"

"I don't know," TK replied, "but I say we attack while we have the element of surprise."

"Peace young Takeru. Control your temper." Azulongmon scolded.

Beelzemon heard Azulongmon's reprimand and saw the pair's digimon in a defensive position. Becky and Annalismon stood off to the side. The rabbit's fur seemed to be standing straight up and the girl had a strange look on her face, yet they did not look aggressive.

"Why are they reacting like that?" Asked Davis.

Gennai sighed and said, "It has to do with the type of digimon that they are. When they digivolve, Gatomon, Patamon, and Annalismon are holy types of digimon. Beelzemon is the exact opposite of that, a powerful opposite. Likewise, TK, Kari, and Becky all are associated with the holy, so they are repelled by him also."

Beelzemon squinted his eyes, "In other words, they hate me because of what I am." He had felt repelled by the holy digimon also, but had spent enough time around digimon like Gallantmon to get over it, although facing angel digimon was a big step up from facing a virus type Royal Knight.

"No!" Becky took a deep breath and walked toward the mega, Annalismon trailing behind. She and Annalismon knew the Tamer's story, Annalismon from living in Zhuqiaomon's palace, and Becky from doing reconnaissance work for the Sovereign.

He narrowed his eyes at the girl. "Come to tell me how much I disgust you to my face?"

Becky shook her head, "No, I may feel uncomfortable because of where you came from, but that doesn't determine who you are. Your data may be sired from one of the evilest digimon in the Digital World, but that doesn't mean you have to be evil," the Digidestined and Tamers looked at one another confused by that statement.

Offering no explanation, Becky continued, "Life isn't determined solely by what you are born into, but most importantly by the choices you make along the way." She held out her hand to him, "Be my friend Beelzemon?"

The demon lord looked surprised at the gesture. "You really want to my friend?"

Becky smiled as she shook his hand, "Of course!"

He looked at Annalismon, "What about you?"

Annalismon smiled, "I know better than most that digimon do not have to be as they appear. I know what you have done. You have made mistakes just like the rest of us and you have paid for those mistakes." Annalismon also held up her hand and shook his.

TK grimaced. He didn't know if he trusted Becky yet. Yes she had stayed in his house for a week, but she had hidden many things from them, and was still hiding much more. She had no explanation for all the secrecy. Likewise, he didn't like the idea of teaming up with such a dark digimon. Yet, he remembered Ogremon. That digimon had been evil, an enemy even, yet he changed. Perhaps it was true that this Beelzemon wasn't evil anymore. It sounded as though the Tamers had reconciled with him.

As TK had this internal struggle, Kari walked toward Beelzemon. Gatomon tried to grab her, calling out her name, but failed to stop her partner's progress. When the Digidestined of Light reached the demon lord, she stopped and stared at him for a moment. After looking into his eyes she said, "Becky's right. You're not evil. I'll be your friend." She shook his hand also.

TK and Patamon taking Kari's lead did the same. All that was left was Gatomon. She walked up to Beelzemon and looked up at him with suspicious eyes. "I don't trust you. I'll be your ally, especially because you have Kari's trust, but not your friend." She pulled one of her gloves off to expose her scared hands. "I won't forget what a digimon like you can do with my trust. You have to earn it."

Beelzemon nodded. He could understand Gatomon. She'd had a hard life full of abuse and it made her slow to trust. The fact that she was going to be his ally would have to be enough. Maybe someday he would earn her trust and she would understand that he too had a rough life.

Beelzemon turned to the Tamers, "Yamaki sent me here to give youz guyz this." He held out a communicator. "He said that he'll use it to get youz on an Ark back home."

"There will be no need for that," Gennai replied.

"Who are you?" The demon lord asked suspiciously, "Why would that be?"

"I am Gennai, I am a servant to the good in Digital World. I live in the Eastern Quadrant though, which is why you have never seen me. Anyways, we are taking the Digidestined and Tamers to a location where the Digidestined can open up a Digi-port back to the Real World. We should be at the location in about an hour or so, Imperialdramon does fly extremely fast. All we need to do is cross some of this ocean, and we will arrive at File Island."

Beelzemon stared at the old man for a minute. Takato laughed and said, "It's been a long day Beelzemon a lot has happened."

"You can say that again. Well, let's get going. I want to get back to Ai and Mako."

"Wait!" Jeri cried.

Beelzemon turned to face the girl. "Yeah Jeri?" He asked reluctantly. He still felt uncomfortable around her. Her face always gave him a stab of guilt for what he had done in the past.

She stared at him with wide eyes, shaking. She tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come out. "I-I"

"Jeri! What's wrong?" He asked concerned. For a moment he felt as if he had been transported back to the kernel of the D-Reaper.

She clenched her hands, "It's what TK said. I want him back!"

Beelzemon gave her a confused look, "What?"

Getting the point TK stepped forward, "So you're the one who killed Jeri's partner."

Another stab of guilt went through the demon lord. "Yeah," he said sadly, "I ain't proud of it, but I am."

"You've done a terrible thing, but you can fix it." TK said, almost regretting shaking the digimon's hand. This would be the true test of whether he could be trusted.

"What?" Beelzemon couldn't believe what he was hearing. He had lived the last half year with grief for what he had done. Now there was a way to fix it? He would do whatever it took.

"Release the data that you absorbed when you killed him. He'll return as a digiegg in Primary Village."

Beelzemon's heart sank, "I don't know how to do that." He looked up to Azulongmon.

The dragon shook his head, "Nor do I. I'm not sure how Zhuqliaomon changed the environment here."

Beelzemon turned to Jeri, "I'm sorry Jeri."

Jeri heart sank, "I know Beelzemon. You've shown that much already." She replied quietly.

TK shook his head, "No, I refuse to give up hope. There's got to be a way."

As if on cue, a digi-gnome passed and stopped by Beelzemon, smiling and cooing.

"Of course!" Kari exclaimed. She turned to Jeri, "You said that those things grant wishes, right?"

"Yeah, but, I don't know…"

"It's worth try right?" TK said encouragingly.

Beelzemon clenched his fists, "Yeah, it is." He looked at the digi-gnome in front of him. "I knowz that I'm not the best person, and that I don't derserve your help, but that girl over there, Jeri, she does. I wish that I could release Leomon's data, so that he can return as a digiegg." He closed his eyes and waited.

Nothing happened, and the digignome floated away. Everyone looked sadly at each other, discouraged by the turn of events. "I don't understand," Ken said, "they were able to give Ryo his memories back."

Disappointment permeated the atmosphere as the group began discussing the rest of their journey. Just as they were about to tackle the challenge of crossing the ocean, the digignome returned, with two others beside it. They stopped in front of Beelzemon. The one leading the others began to coo happily and circled the demon lord. The others began doing the same.

"Huh? What's going on? I feel weird!" He exclaimed. He began to glow and suddenly bits of data began leaving his body.

"I guess the little guy needed help from his friends." Takato said laughing excitedly.

The bits of data began moving away from the group over the ocean and out of their view. "Where is the data going?" Jeri asked.

"To Primary Village," Gennai replied, "Leomon's egg will reform there. We can find it before you leave."

"Wow! It's a miwacle!" Shouted Suzie happily.

The digignomes stopped circling Beelzemon after a few minutes, and he stopped glowing. Once the process was over, he sank to the ground breathing heavily. "Wow, that takes a lot out of a guy." He glowed as he dedigivolved to Impmon.

"Impmon!" Rika shouted worriedly, "are you ok?"

He opened an eye and said, "Peachy. Just pooped. I'll get some TLC from Ai and Mako though."

"You did a good thing Impmon. This continues to prove that it's not a digimon's data that determines who he is, but his choices." Azulongmon commended.

"So," said Davis, breaking the tender moment, "we're going to head back to the Real World, right? My mom's going to kill me if I'm not home for dinner."

Kari rolled her eyes and said, "Gosh Davis, you have no tact."

"Ready Ken?" Davis asked.

Ken nodded.

Veemon and Wormmon began to digivolve, eventually fusing to make Imperialdramon.

Davis smiled and shouted as he climbed up the digimon's back, "Come on guys! Imperialdramon should get us there fast!" 

Once everyone had gotten in the sealed compartment on Imperialdramon's back the dragon shouted, "Everyone keep you seatbelt on until the seatbelt light has gone off, then you may move around the cabin. That is if you have time to move around the cabin!"


	12. A Prophecy?

**Sorry this update took so long. Finals are coming up fast, so I've had a lot of work lately. Two quick edits to past chapters also. First, in Chapter 6, The Return of Annalismon, there was a point when Becky said "Crest of Light partner mode activate." It was supposed to be "Crest of Life." It's a pretty important difference. Second, I realized that for some reason, a few sentences got cut off at the end of my last chapter. Nothing big, just a dialogue between Davis and Ken and Wormmon and Veemon subsequently digivolving into Imperialdramon. My updates will probably be spotty for the next couple weeks until finals are over. Thanks again to TrioF as well as Rhyme13kh14Xion8 for reviewing. And for those of you worried about season 4. Don't worry in a few more chapters, they'll come into play more.**

**Please Review! :) Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or anything you may recognize.**

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The ride to File Island was short. Joe leaned against the side of the compartment, trying to not to get motion sickness. Though Imperialdramon's supersonic speeds made his stomach churn, he greatly preferred this method of travel to boat. 'Or Whamon,' he added silently, 'Imperialdramon doesn't smell like fish. Plus, I would have gotten seasick anyways. At least this way I'm only sick for a few minutes.'

"Joe!" Gomamon said, "Whatcha thinking about?"

"The last time we crossed the ocean, when Whamon helped us against the Dark Masters."

"Yeah, I wish we could spend some more time in the water, like that time."

"Can't say I agree with you there, but I imagine you've missed the Digi-ocean."

"Maybe, just a little. But, what's nice about the Real World is that you have bathtubs, swimming pools, and fountains."

Joe snorted with laughter, "Yeah, remember the time you went swimming in that fountain, and a woman thought you were a seal that escaped from the zoo?"

"Don't remind me! Her screeches still haunt my nightmares. Seals aren't even that dangerous."

Joe felt Imperialdramon begin to descend. "Looks like we're about to land," he said to Gomamon.

Imperialdramon landed on a beach lined with telephone booths. "We're here!" He shouted as he dedigivolved into DemiVeemon and Minomon. The two jumped into their partners' arms.

"Takato, look at the sky! I can't see the Real World anymore. How are we ever going to get home?" Guilmon exclaimed sadly. "I'm hungry and want some bread."

The Tamers all looked up at the sky in amazement.

"I don't know boy." Takato responded. He turned to the Digidestined. "Where do we go now?"

Gennai intervened, "Follow us! Let's go find Leomon and a Digi-port."

The group followed Gennai and Azulongmon for about an hour through a forest, when familiar colorful block structures rose up over the horizon. TK smiled, grabbed Jeri's arm, and began running toward them. When the forest cleared, they came into a field that had a quilted pattern. In the distance there were digi-eggs and baby digimon sitting in cradles littered all around.

A voice called, "Who dares to enter Primary Village? They better not be touching my babies!"

Jeri shrunk back, but TK just laughed and continued to pull her forward. "Elecmon! How are you?"

A red and purple digimon came into view. "TK? Patamon? Is that you?"

"Yup Elecmon! It's us, and we brought a friend!" Patamon responded happily.

"Well any friend of yours is a friend of mine! Are you here to play with the baby digimon?"

"Actually Elecmon," TK replied, "We need your help. Our friend Jeri is looking for a digiegg. Her partner Leomon was deleted."

"Hmm… a digiegg from the Leomon Digievolution line. Let me think."

"It should have just appeared a couple hours ago."

"Yes, I think I know exactly what you're talking about."

Elecmon began leading them through a maze of digieggs. She couldn't believe that she was going to see Leomon again. Suddenly, they stopped in front of an orange and yellow striped digiegg.

Jeri froze. She didn't know what to do. All this time she had wished for this, but now she didn't even know if she could face him after all that she had done. She was the reason that the D-Reaper made it to the Real World. She had disappointed him. She didn't have a lion's heart. Jeri turned her back to the digiegg. There was no way that he would ever want to be her partner anymore. Tears began falling from her eyes.

"Jeri?" Takato asked, as he and the rest of the group approached them.

"I can't do it. I can't face him after all that I've done. He'd be better off without me."

Takato's face fell. "But Jeri," he started, yet he had no words.

Jeri made to leave when someone grabbed her arm. She turned to see Becky looking at her with fierce eyes. "Jeri Kato, don't you dare abandon your digimon. That is the worst possible thing you could do."

Jeri yanked her arm away. "You don't even understand."

"True, Annalismon has never been deleted, but I've watched my brother make the same choice you're making right now."

TK looked surprised, "You have a brother?"

Becky rolled her eyes at the interruption, "Yeah, it was on my info sheet that you and your mom got. I have a twin brother."

"Anyways, Charlie was being stupid, and it ended up getting him and his partner, Coronamon, in trouble. Well, really, it was the two of them. They're both too hard headed for their own good. But, I digress; Coronamon ended up getting in a fight too big for him, and was deleted. Charlie didn't know at the time that Coronamon would be reborn, and was devastated. When Annalismon and I showed up and told him that Coronamon would be reborn, he got so excited. We came here to Primary Village and found his digiegg, but he wouldn't take it. He blamed himself for getting Coronamon deleted, and didn't think he deserved him as his partner. He walked away."

"That decision has haunted both of them. Charlie is empty. He barely talks to me anymore. He puts on a good show at school, but I know what's really going on. And Coronamon? He feels abandoned. He doesn't understand why Charlie doesn't want him. He wanders around the Digiworld with little purpose beyond what the Sovereign give him."

Jeri cringed at the story. "But he'll be so disappointed in me. He can't possibly want me."

"I know that it may seem that way, but if you two are really partners, you'll be able to work through it," Ken added. "I did horrible things as the Digimon Emperor, things that I still feel incredibly guilty for. It was entirely my fault that Wormmon was deleted. But, somehow, the bond that we shared was stronger than all of that. If we could do it, so can you. Somehow I get the feeling that what you did is nothing on what I did."

Wormmon nodded. "I don't know what I would have done if Ken left me. Yes, there were things that he did wrong, but there were things that I did wrong too. If he hadn't found me again, I wouldn't have been able to tell him how much I care for him."

"Here," TK said, placing the egg in her hands. "Rub it gently. If it's time, he should hatch."

Jeri looked down at the egg resting in her hands. Inside, she could feel a gentle pulse from the being within its shell. She was shaking. Gritting her teeth, she took a deep breath and gently rubbed the egg. She hoped it would hatch, because she didn't think she could do this again. She also secretly felt that if the egg didn't hatch it was because Leomon was rejecting her.

She stopped rubbing and waited. There was silence for a couple minutes. Her heart sank. 'He doesn't want me,' She thought sadly.

She began to set the egg down, but suddenly…

_Crack!_ The digiegg cracked open and a small red digimon peaked out of the shell. It jumped out of the egg into Jeri arms, crying, "Puni! Puni!"

She gasped as the digimon snuggled closer to her. "Jeri! Jeri!" He said happily.

"Who is this?" She asked, pulling out her D-arc. "Let's see. You're Punimon, Leomon's baby form. Wow! I can't believe it! You're really back. Can you ever forgive me?" Tears were falling from her eyes.

Punimon looked up at her, sad that his partner was so upset. "Jeri! Love you!"

She looked down at him. The little guy had tears running down his face as he nuzzled further into the crook of her arm.

Takato came up behind her. "It looks like he does."

Surprised, Jeri turned around. "Takato? Do you really think so?"

Takato blushed at her sudden close proximity. "Well yeah, I mean look at him. I don't think I've seen a happier digimon, except maybe when Guilmon discovered peanut butter." He said rubbing the back of his head and laughing uncomfortably.

Crying, Jeri threw her arms around Takato. Kazu laughed and nudged Kenta. "Looks like Chumley's getting some action!"

Rika snorted, "Do you have anything better to do than be stupid?"

Finally, after nearly a half year of separation, Jeri was reunited with Leomon. Becky smiled happily at Annalismon. "I'm glad that they found each other. If only Charlie would listen to me and come back."

Annalismon sighed. "Yeah. Someday soon you'll talk some sense into him. You'll have to."

Gennai came up to the pair. "I'm about to get the rest of them set up with a digi-port. Azulongmon still wants to talk to you. We need to figure out what we're going to do. He thinks you've acted very foolishly today."

Becky sighed. "I know. Do you understand why I had to come?"

Gennai gave her a sad smile, "Yes, I do understand. I would have done the same if I had the power."

"Gennai?" Becky added. "Have you ever thought that maybe it is time for the prophecy to come to pass?"

Gennai laughed, "I spent my entire life on this prophecy. I wake up everyday wondering if this is the day. But, I need a bit more proof than this to believe that it is truly time. Azulongmon will too. It almost seems like you manufactured this."

Becky's brow furrowed. "No, I didn't manufacture anything besides opening the gate for them. They found each other on their own. I kept hidden the whole time like I have my whole life."

Annalismon had a thoughtful expression on her face. "I think we need to rethink our strategy. It seems to me that we can't put off the events of the prophecy any longer by keeping our identities in the dark. Outside forces seem to be pulling us all toward the professed outcomes."

"It seems to be so, but hush until the others have left. We must discuss this with Azulongmon first," Gennai replied.

The pair nodded solemnly.

With that said, Gennai called the attention of the rest of the group. He led them to something that looked like an old analog television set. "Here you go kids. Travel back safely."

Everyone crowed around the TV except Becky and Annalismon, who stood next to Gennai and Azulongmon. Ryo noticed. He crossed his arms. Hadn't he made it clear that he wasn't leaving without her?

"Becky," he asked, "Are you really going to stay here?"

Becky smiled and said, "Ryo, it's ok."

"No its not! I don't trust them. They're going to do something. I'm not leaving you behind."

Frustrated, she huffed, "Stop it. I knew what I was getting myself into when I revealed myself to you."

TK broke off to join Ryo. "I'm not leaving you either. I don't know you well, even though you're living in my apartment, but I know that you did what you had to. Plus, what would I tell Mom if I came back and you weren't there?"

Azulongmon was running out of patience. "Stop being foolish. It is not wise to cross a Sovereign. Do as I say."

Ryo smirked. "You know, I think I'm in a position to defy you as much as I want, seeing how much you've messed up my life. We're not leaving Becky behind. I'll biomerge to fight if I have to."

"Stop it!" Becky cried. "Azulongmon doesn't mean me any harm. There's no reason to fight." She turned to the Sovereign. "Look, things are escalating. I was going to tell you in our meeting, but you may as well hear now. The prophecy is beginning; we can't stop it anymore. I was just telling Gennai that I didn't manufacture this incident. All I did was open the digi-port."

"Rebecca, that's not enough evidence. I'm not going to risk expediting the prophesy by creating a power boom."

"But…"

"No buts. Now, you children had better leave because I have important issues to speak to Rebecca about."

Annalismon seemed to be in deep thought. She knew that she had to fix this. She had known the Sovereign the longest besides Gennai. Then it hit her, 'Of course, the most important piece of evidence!' It was a little tidbit that Becky had told her from her spying expeditions over the past few days while they had been riding on Imperialdramon.

"Azulongmon! Stop! There's more you need to know. The Celestial Leaders say it's time for the prophecy to come about."

Azulongmon froze in shock, "Th-The Celestial Leaders? But how?"

"Becky told me about it. She was spying on the Digidestined, trying to get information. A few days ago they had a big meeting, where Izzy told a strange story. He said that a mysterious voice called him to the Continent of Light. It opened a digi-port for him, saying that a new prophecy was about to come about and that she had much needed information for him. When he went to the Continent of Light, he brought back a book. Becky's pretty sure that it's the Book of Knowledge."

"Izzy," Becky said turning to him. "Do you have that book with you?"

"Yeah I do." He pulled out the ornate book from his backpack and handed it to Annalismon.

"See!" Annalismon exclaimed. "Look at the book and you'll know it's true. That book could have only come from Lady Ophanimon's library."

Gennai took a closer look at the book. "They're right Azulongmon. This is the real thing. Remember, the Sovereign and Celestial leaders bound this book to her library so only the holder of the crest of knowledge could remove it."

"Impossible! Who would have had the power to lead him there? The Continent of Light isn't even in his quadrant. It's in the Northern Quadrant. And, the digi-ports weren't even working! "

"The Celestial Leaders have displayed a surprising amount of power before," Annalismon replied. "Remember how Lady Ophanimon called to original Digidestined to save the world from Lord Cherubimon while she was imprisoned. They are still powerful though they are trapped. I know. I spent many years solely in their presence. Azulongmon, I know that you're trying to stop the prophecy from coming to be, but this is unavoidable. The prophecy isn't necessarily bad if we use that information to our benefit. Evil is growing stronger, and if we don't face it now, it will continue to grow more powerful, until it's too late to stop. Lady Ophanimon, Lord Seraphimon, and Lord Cherubimon realized this long ago."

Azulongmon looked at the scene before him. Almost all the Chosen were assembled. The Book of Knowledge had reared its head and the Digidestined had found the holder of the Crests. Perhaps the Celestial Leaders' judgment was right. It generally was. The great dragon conceded. He let out a great sigh of sadness and weariness. "The evidence would seem to point to your argument, Annalismon. Perhaps it is time to face this ultimate evil. Rebecca, Annalismon, you know what that means. Tell them everything that we've taught you. Give them the tools, and assemble the rest of the team. If the prophecy is coming to pass, then there is not any time to lose."

Annalismon smiled, "Don't worry, we got this. Remember I was trained by the best." She gave a wink to Gennai.

"Go then!"

The group reassembled around the digi-port. "Becky," Izzy asked. "What was Azulongmon talking about?"

Becky smiled, "Don't worry, I promise to give everyone all the details once we get back to the Real World."

Izzy nodded. He was learning that he would have to wait for any information he got from her.

Gennai came over and handed Izzy The Book of Knowledge. "Here's this back. Keep it safe. It will be a valuable tool once you master it's use."

Izzy looked baffled. "But, don't you want it?"

Gennai laughed, "I wouldn't be able to do much with it. It was meant to belong to the holder of the crest of knowledge, which is you."

Izzy grasped the book tightly. "Don't worry, I'll treasure it."

"Good." Gennai turned to Annalismon. "Goodbye. I'll miss you."

"Don't worry! Becks and I will come and visit you soon. Tea sounds nice!"

Gennai smiled serenely, "That does sound nice. I'm glad that you're safe."

"Thanks!"

With that, Gennai backed away from the portal so that he wouldn't be pulled along. As the group was sucked through the digi-port, Izzy wondered at the affection between Annalismon, Becky, and Gennai. He had corresponded with the man for several years, but had not come across that kind of affection in the man. The thoughts left his mind as his body was pulled through dimensions, landing in the Real World.


	13. Whispers of the Past

**Hello all! So my exams are done! Yay! And in celebration, here's another chapter. It's pretty long (it was originally 3 chapters before edits), but it sets up how this world is going to function as well as some of the background. One more chapter until things start to take off! Thanks to TrioF and Rhyme13kh14Xion for reviewing again, as well as to RosesOfTruth for their first review! Keep them coming.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own digimon or anything else you may recognize.**

* * *

The group crash-landed in a dark room lit up by computer monitors.

"Hey! This isn't the park!" Exclaimed Davis nervously.

"Nice observation Davis. What was it, the lack of trees that tipped you off?" Rika asked sarcastically.

"Stop you two," Henry said concerned. "Davis does raise a good point. Where are we?"

"I can answer that," a voice said from the darkness. "But a better question would be where were you?"

"Yamaki?" Takato asked as the blond haired man came into view.

"Welcome back to Hypnos. We've been trying to monitor what you've been doing to make sure that you would get home safely. We were alerted when there was a large digital surge in the park when you opened a portal."

"Why did we end up here?" Yolei asked, "Why not at the park?"

"Hmm…" Izzy mused. "We should have ended up back at the park unless… unless my laptop was moved." He looked back to where they had landed. "Yup there it is." He walked over and picked it up.

"So," Yamaki said, "You are the owner of that laptop. It was the only trace of evidence we could find at the park when we went to investigate. I presume that you are Izzy Izumi?"

"Yes, I am." Izzy replied.

"Well Izzy, you are quite the computer wiz. None of my government-funded team could break your security. We were however, able to see the names of some your files. What do you know about the Digital World?"

"Dang it!" Izzy said, frustrated, "I knew I should have encrypted the file names. What is it to you what I know about the Digital World?"

Yamaki flipped his lighter in irritation. "Look kid, this is a government facility made to monitor digimon activity throughout Tokyo. You seem to know more than you should, so I think I'll do the talking here."

"Oh yeah!" Tai said rising to his friend's defense. "What's to keep us from busting out of here."

"No!" Takato exclaimed. "Yamaki is a friend. He helped us beat the D-Reaper."

"I don't trust government personnel looking into the Digital World. Gennai is generally against it." Izzy said, worried.

Yamaki turned to Takato. "I want answers Takato. What is going on here? There have been weird signals in that park all day. Then you Tamers go missing into the Digital World. Now you show up back here without the aid of an ark with new children that we have never seen before. I think I have some questions that should be answered."

"Yamaki, we don't really understand what's going on either." Takato replied. "We were trying to save this digimon," he said gesturing to Annalismon, "When these Digidestined showed up. They said that they came from a different dimension. They were the ones who opened a portal. When we got there, we ran into the Sovereign and had an altercation with Zhuqiaomon. Becky, the red haired girl back there, showed up with Ryo and started to fight him. It turns out that the hurt digimon was Becky's partner. They defended us, and forced Zhuqiaomon to have an epiphany about his actions. He opened a portal to another dimension and disappeared. So he's not a threat anymore. Did I also mention that the Digital World is about 4 times bigger than we originally thought? Oh, and that until this afternoon we all thought that 12 of these new children and their digimon were TV show characters. It's been a long day."

"A dimensional rift hmmm…" Yamaki replied, in deep thought.

"Not exactly," Becky said timidly. "You see we're all actually from the same plane of existence. It's hard to explain, but before the Digidestined fought the Dark Masters, we were all on the same plane, with no separations. The stuff that the Dark Masters and Apocalymon did messed up the borders of the dimensional planes."

"Afterwards, when the Digidestined freed the Sovereign, it was decided that the Digiworld, which beforehand existed as one continuous plane, would be divided into four sections to make it easier to rule. See the Sovereign were stretched. Their main job wasn't so much to rule the Digiworld, but to protect its integrity and keep dark forces away. But, the Celestial Leaders, Cherubimon, Seraphimon, and Ophanimon, who had taken care of the government side of things, were trapped by the Dark Masters, and could not yet be freed. This division of the Digital World had unintended consequences though. The human world, which is tied so closely was also divided."

"How it went unnoticed is a mystery to all of us. The only answer is that it created separate continuities of existence. For example, there is a Shinjuku park in the Digidestined's home and looks almost like the one here. I really don't have an explanation for why or how this happened, only that it did. But, these barriers can be crossed, and the Digidestined found a weak spot to cross at."

"Seriously?" Izzy asked. "That is so cool!"

Takato looked at Davis. "Do you get it?"

Davis puffed up, "Yeah of course I… Well actually, not really. I generally leave this kind of stuff up to Izzy."

Yamaki seemed to be in deep thought. "You," he said to Becky, "I'd like you to stay behind for questioning. And, you," he said turning to Izzy, "you also."

Tai crossed his arms. "Those are terms we can't accept. They don't belong here. They belong with us. They both have families to go back to in our world."

"You mean continuity," Becky quipped.

"Continuity, world, whatever, you guys are going home with us." Tai said as he rolled his eyes. He could barely handle one Izzy. He didn't need a second one.

Yamaki growled, "Look kid, you have no place making demands here. Those two have information I need."

The situation was escalating quickly. The Tamers looked at one another, unsure of what to do. They didn't want a fight to break out. Hypnos had been a powerful enemy in the past.

Becky stepped up. "Tai, it's ok. I'll stay behind. I don't want this to escalate any further."

"But…" Tai stuttered.

"Look, I'll be fine. Annalismon and I have fended for ourselves for a long time. These people here are not our enemies, but they need to know why they are not."

"What about school tomorrow?" TK asked. "And what am I supposed to tell Mom?"

Becky shrugged. "The truth? It's not like she doesn't know about Digimon anyways."

"How… How in the world do you know that?" TK asked, amazed at her almost endless store of information.

Becky laughed, "TK, it's been my job to know stuff about you guys. I've been watching you since, well since you went to the Digital World the first time. Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to pretend I didn't know who you were? But trust me it wasn't this creepy thing we were just keeping an eye out for you guys. It would make more sense I suppose if you understood the prophecy."

Henry looked troubled, "That's the second time that you've mentioned this prophecy, and that it is part of the key to understanding the past events. Why not just tell us already?"

Weariness seemed to set into Becky and Annalismon's eyes. Ryo recognized it, and realized that the pair wanted to retell their story as much as he did his own. "Guys I think we shouldn't push them to tell their story unless they want to."

His partner, who had dedigivolved to Monodramon on the trip back, nodded in agreement.

Annalismon sighed, "No, Henry's right. It's time. We should take our own advice that we just gave to Azulongmon. The time to unveil the shadows of the past."

"Why don't we move to a conference room," suggested Yamaki.

Annalismon pondered for a moment. "I guess we should. But," she added looking at Yamaki severely, "realize this. You are about to learn some important secrets about the Digital World. I am allowing you to hear this because you have been a powerful ally to the Tamers. I am going against everything my sensei has taught me about revealing information to humans. I am trusting you not to misuse this information. It could have dire consequence for both worlds if you do not heed this."

Yamaki nodded solemnly.

"Good," Annalismon said, brightening up. "Then lead the way."

They arrived at the conference room. Yamaki opened the door, and inside sat a man. "Dad!?" Henry exclaimed.

"Henry! Suzie!" Janyu shouted, embracing his children.

Yamaki turned to Annalismon. "Is it alright if Janyu sits in too?"

She nodded, "No offense, but I trust him a bit more than you."

Yamaki sighed and shook his head, "I should have figured."

Once the group settled in, Annalismon started, "So the beginning I suppose. Now, this may conflict with what you think you know, but I assure you, this is the truth. The Digital World began quite a long time ago, longer than many of you think. It has not always followed the laws that you know. A lot has changed. In the beginning, time passed in the Digital World must faster than it did in the Real World."

"The first computer known to the world was ENIAC, and from this data, the Digital World was created. ENIAC himself was not he creator, but he was given consciousness and is extremely powerful. He was created with an angelic digimon, Lucemon. Lucemon was a very powerful digimon, who possessed much knowledge of the secrets of the Digital World."

"But, Lucemon was corrupted by jealousy when other digimon were created from ENIAC's data. One day, he disappeared, and none could find him. We think he began to experiment, trying to make his own digimon that would be faithful to him and recognize him as master, and as a result a great evil began corrupting the Digital World."

"Many years later, the Digital World was plunged into a violent war between the beast type digimon and the human type digimon. Lucemon returned and restored peace to the Digital World. But it soon became apparent that he did not have good intentions for the Digital World. He finally got his position of power that he longed for, and began to subject the Digital World to his twisted will."

"All seemed lost because no one could defeat Lucemon. In the end, it was only by the power of the 10 Legendary Warriors, powerful digimon created second, after Lucemon, who harnessed the natural elements of the Digiworld, that Lucemon was defeated. He was imprisoned in a place called the Dark Area."

"A new era of peace began in the Digital World. The Celestial Leaders, Cherubimon, Seraphimon, and Ophanimon, who were extremely old digimon created at the time of the 10 Legendary Warriors, were entrusted with its protection and rule. Yet, Lucemon still held sway in the Digital World. He was not imprisoned well enough to keep him from influencing digimon. He eventually worked his way into Cherubimon's heart and took control of him. Cherubimon imprisoned Seraphimon and Ophanimon, and began to destroy the Digital World to gather its data in an effort to become the more powerful."

"Ophanimon, who was graced with the power of foresight, was able to see that if the spirits of the 10 Legendary Warriors were fused with humans, they would be able to defeat the evil. So, she made a desperate attempt to call the unknown chosen. She sent out a message to every human in the world, and those that responded were sent to the Digital World. From those that responded, the chosen Digidestined were found. They were bestowed the spirits of the 10 Legendary Warriors."

"These children were given the task of defeating Cherubimon, which they accomplished. However, by the time Cherubimon was defeated, Lucemon had gained enough strength to release new servants who ultimately released him from his prison. He almost defeated the Chosen, but somehow they managed to combine all 10 Warriors and defeat him."

"Both Lucemon had two digieggs, a light one and a dark one. No other digimon has two digieggs. It is evidence that something terrible and unnatural happened to him at some point. These eggs were sealed in the deepest level of the Dark Area. The Digital World began to rebuild. However, the Celestial Leaders were worried. Going to back to ENIAC, the Celestial Leaders pleaded that new digimon had to be made to help protect the Digital World from darkness. According to them, angelic digimon had too great a chance of falling to be completely trusted with the integrity of the Digital World. So, four new digimon, who you know as the Sovereign, were made with power that almost exceeded the Celestial Leaders. Their job was to keep the Digital World in one piece, to keep it balanced, and to protect it from evil. The Celestial Leaders governed the Digital World."

"Another era of peace came to the Digital World. Yet, evil was still on the move. During this time, Ophanimon made another prophesy. She said that the worst had not yet come. A Virus of Evil would enter into the Digital World and combine its strength with the Lucemon. But, there was hope. Humans once again would provide the answer. There were two groups of humans that could stop the evil. In the first group, Digimon would be able to tap into the certain qualities of humans that were essential to the goodness of the Digital World and become extremely powerful. Not much was known about the second group just that they existed. There was also time. The Virus would not begin its assault until all the Powers of Goodness were assembled together."

"Yet, the powers of the Digital World dismayed. They did not understand how humans would be partnered with digimon. But the Digital World seemed to know. Not long, several weeks in human time, after the Legendary Warriors returned something amazing happened. Two digieggs got caught in a dimensional warp and ended up in the human world. They were the eggs found by Tai, Kari and Willis. Most of you know the story with Tai and Kari. The egg hatched and turned into a Greymon, though a different one than Tai's current partner. Eventually, another egg made it through the dimensional barrier and hatched into a Parrotmon. They battled and destroyed part of Heighten View Terrace. The digimon returned to the Digital World."

"However, I doubt you know much about Willis. His digimon, Terriermon and Lopmon, never had an epic battle. They all became friends and forged a special relationship. His digimon never returned from the Real World. He helped them digivolve also, though it was a much more gradual process."

"As soon as the powers of good learned of these two occurrences, they studied them carefully. It was discovered that digimon and humans could form a special bond. In the case of Tai, it was discovered that digimon could react to certain intense qualities for certain people. This quality depended both on the human and digimon. Tai was special. The powers of good knew this. They read his particular energy reading and looked for more children that had the same energy reading. Many children were found, but 15 were selected. They were selected because they radiated such pure qualities that had been indicated in the prophesy. As fate would have it, 9 of the 15 witnessed the Heighten View Terrace Incident. These were Tai, Kari, Matt, TK, Sora, Joe, Mimi, Izzy, and Becky."

Everyone looked at Becky questioningly. "I was on a business trip with my dad," she said with a shrug.

Annalismon cleared her throat and continued. "Anyways, Willis was also studied. His relationship was very different, but no less powerful. The power levels of his digimon never spiked to cause rapid Digievolution. But then again, there was no digimon threat that would make it a need. Yet, though they did not seem as powerful, eventually they grew even more powerful. It was a strong sustaining energy. Something about digimon and humans having a strong bond gave them powerful, lasting energy."

"Now the forces of good had something to go off of. They began scouring the Digiworld for partners that matched the chosen's energy readings. After a painstaking search, all the eggs were found. Yet, something was needed to channel the power. First they came up with the Tag and Crests. These were extremely powerful tools that responded to the qualities in the human and digimon partners. They allowed for Digievolution, as well as many other powerful offensive and defensive capabilities."

"But, the Crests weren't enough. They didn't register enough lower level energy to allow the digimon to only evolve into Champion form. Digivices were made by taking some of the power of the Digievolution catalyst and placing it in a small device. Only a very small portion was used, maybe the size of a pinhead. The Sovereign then blessed them with their elements, making the indestructible, yet malleable to change. The Celestial Leaders blessed them with holy light that could help redeem lost digimon, and harm evil ones. Intense programming also went into them to allow the holders to cross dimensional borders."

"There were also security procedures that protected the chosen eggs and their tools. They grouped the eggs into two groups according to the prophecy. To conceal the true number of Digidestined, they rotated the groups eggs every few weeks from the position outside an invisible force field, to the one inside."

"The forces of good's plan seemed to work perfectly at first. I was the first digimon born. I spent my first few years in that castle, playing and training. I waited impatiently for the day that the rest of the digimon would hatch, and I would have playmates. That day never really came."

"One day, I was playing behind the force field, watching the agents take care of the digieggs. Suddenly, Piedmon, a powerful member of the powers of darkness, broke into the building. He killed all the agents, and stole the Tags and Crests. It seemed all was lost, but one agent was left, Gennai. Gennai fought Piedmon, and prevented him from taking the older Digidestined's eggs and Digivices, and took them to safety. During this, I saved the digieggs behind the force field. I escaped with all the eggs, digivices, and Tags and Crests, except for the Tag and Crest of Kindness, by pushing them through an emergency escape route hidden in the floor."

"After the attack, Gennai found me, and took me to a meeting with the Sovereign Leaders to determine the fate of the Digidestined Operation. Apparently, Piedmon made his strike as the other Dark Masters and the rest of the evil digimon attacked the Celestial Leaders. They could not delete the angels, but they managed imprisoned them, and made it impossible for them to rule the Digiworld. Rule and protection of the Digiworld were upon the shoulders of the Sovereign. Massive search parties went out for the Digimon of Light, who had been lost in flight to Primary Village, as well as the Tag and Crest of Kindness. Neither was found."

"Many years past, and eventually word came the other eggs hatched. New Tags and Crests had been made for the first group of Digidestined. They did not possess the power of the original Tags and Crests, but they could channel energy through a digivice to help a partner achieve higher evolution."

"It had been determined that I would train extensively and someday be a guide for the other Digidestined. It was necessary to keep some of the deep secrets hidden because the knowledge would mess up the growing relationship between partners. Only when the Digidestined had matured to a sufficient level and it was time for the final journey would my partner and I be revealed. That was what the prophecy said at least."

"There was an uneasy calm for a few years, until, suddenly, the Virus was on the move. The Sovereign crossed the firewall that imprisoned a small dimensional rift created by the virus originally to investigate, but they never came back. The Virus trapped them between dimensions where it lay. As this was accomplished, a powerful being that had created the evil digimon that trapped the Celestial Leaders escaped."

"But, all hope was not lost. Before the Sovereign were sealed away, they opened the dimensional portal between the Real World and the Digital World to call for the Digidestined. The digivices of the first Digidestined activated and crossed the dimensional divide to their owner."

"I'm pretty sure most of you are somewhat familiar with what happened next. The digivices were transported to the Human World where their owners, Tai Kamiya, Matt Ishida, Sora Takenouchi, Izzy Izumi, Mimi Tachikawa, Joe Kido, and TK Takashi, picked them up and were transported to the Digiworld. There they met their partners Agumon, Gabumon, Biyomon, Tentomon, Palmon, Gomamon, and Patamon."

"What you don't know is that there was another Digidestined that was also sent to the Digiworld at the same time. That was Becky. She landed in the wilderness of the Continent of Server. I don't think I need to recap all of the 1st Digidestined's adventures for you. They continually got stronger. First defeating Devimon, then Etemon. I think though, that their real test came when they followed Myotismon to the Real World to find the missing 8th Digidestined. This was all necessary, but it had disastrous consequences for the Digital World. Without the Digidestined or Sovereign the forces of evil were able to run wild."

"While the other Digidestined were off on their adventure, we had a task of our own to complete. We had to get the original Tags and Crests. That meant sneaking into Piedmon's palace, and stealing them away without him noticing. It was a very tricky process, but we managed to succeed."

"When the final evil, Apocalymon, had been defeated, we all went home. But, Annalismon and I had a special job to do. We were the keepers of the Original Crests. Thus, Annalismon went to the Real World with me to help protect me."

"The battles were far from over however. The make up of the Digital World was still unstable, and somehow Machinedramon had been thrown out Digital Plane into the field that the virus existed on. Later, when Apocalymon tried to self-destruct, some of his data was also pushed into the same plane. Now for those who don't understand, Apocalymon was no normal digimon. He was made from the data of digimon that had died off because they could not digivolve. Thus he contained a lot of different kinds of data. During his battle with the Digidestined, he also absorbed the data of their partners. Some of this data that fell into the virus' plane combined and manifested itself into Kimeramon. Kimeramon fused itself with the dying Machinedramon to create an extremely powerful evil digimon called Millenniummon."

"Now Millenniummon was different than any other digimon that had been spawned by the Virus, it was the Virus' ultimate creation. Millenniummon had the power to control time and space. He crossed the firewall and captured the Digidestined, including Annalismon and myself. Now all of this was unexpected. Millenniummon was not in the prophecy, probably because he had the power to manipulate time and space. The Sovereign were still trapped in the Virus plane too. Gennai did the only thing he knew to do. He and Agumon who had miraculously managed to escape with Tai's digivice called for help from the human world. As if by fate, the only human to answer was none other than Ryo Akiyama."

Ryo scowled at the mention of his name. They were onto his part of the story now.

"There was something special about Ryo. We were never sure, but somehow he managed to defeat Millenniummon, something that no one else was able to do. Though he had no partner, and couldn't use Tai's digivice to make Agumon digivolve, somehow he had the necessary strength to defeat him."

"Though Millenniummon was defeated, he wasn't totally deleted. He evil energy continued, and about a year after the Digidestined first entered the Digital World, he struck a second time. Millenniummon was basically the child of the Virus, and thus had it's ability to corrupt. He took a program, which had been made by Willis, and corrupted it into Diaboromon. It created a fierce digimon that almost destroyed the human world, if had not been for the work of Tai, Agumon, Matt, Gabumon, TK, Patamon, Izzy, and Tentomon."

"But Millenniummon wasn't done. The essence of the corrupt program took control of one of Willis' partners, Kokomon. However, to our best knowledge, that was just a side effect. Millenniummon really wanted Ryo to come back to the Digital World in order to get his revenge. So, at the last minute, he transferred one of the copies that Diaboromon had made of himself to the Digital World. Ryo came back, but this time with Ken. They fought along with Wormmon and Veemon to stop Diaboromon, and then Millenniummon again. That was when Ken received the Dark Spore in his neck."

"Now, the Dark Spore is something very mysterious to us. We don't really understand it yet, but it is something very powerful, and we believe that it may have something to do with the prophecy. Using that as a fill in, we have predicted many things that have come to pass. It is an important tool of the Virus, and the enemy desperately wants it back."

"Anyways, though it seemed that Millenniummon had been defeated, he really had not. Gennai was perturbed by the dark digimon's power. He decided that he needed the help of the Sovereign who were still trapped in the Virus' plane. Thus, he called together the Digidestined and asked them to release the power of their Crests, causing them to lose the power to Digivolve past the Champion level for the time."

"Millenniummon's power was increasing at a frightening rate. And the Sovereign decided to call Ryo to the Digital World. This was only a few days after he and Ken had returned home. He engaged the evil digimon in battle, and it seemed like he was going to win, but suddenly there was a large explosion, and Ryo and Millenniummon disappeared."

"We thought them dead. After the battle, the Sovereign decided that they could not rule the Digital World as it was, and thus decided to divide it into four quadrants with File Island at the center. Like I said before, this had unintended consequences of the Real World. A couple months after the world had been divided, Annalismon got a message from ENIAC during her meditation. Though the computer did not have a physical form anymore, apparently it still existed under many levels of the Digital World. Ryo was alive and had defeated Millenniummon. He was in the Southern Quadrant. He was unconscious, but had received a digiegg that contained his partner who he had met during his adventure in space and time."

"Another year passed, Ken went to another dimension next to the Digital World, called the Dark Ocean. Here the powers of the Dark Spore manifested, and his digivice warped into a Dark D3, and he became the Digimon Emperor."

"Finally, after 4 years had passed since the 1st Digidestined entered the Digital World, the second round of Digidestined faced their adventure. They were given their own digivices, which had evolved to D3s in order to combat Ken's evil power. These Digidestined were Davis Motomiya, Yolei Inoue, and Cody Hida, as well as TK and Kari. They worked to prevent Ken from enslaving digimon with his Control Spires. Also, in this year, Ryo reentered the Digital World as the Tamer of Monodramon."

"Now like I said before, the Dark Spore was a very interesting item. We believe that under its influence, Ken recreated Kimeramon. It was a good thing that he was defeated because we believe that the darkness was trying to make another Millenniummon."

"Anyways, Ken was able to overcome the darkness in his heart, and joined the other Digidestined and they were able to learn the true mastermind behind the Control Spires. It was a man named Oikawa and his servants Mummymon and Arukenimon. During these battles, the Digidestined were able to discover a new method of Digievolution, DNA digivolving. This allowed them to digivolve their digimon past the Champion level."

"Eventually, it was here that it was revealed that Myotismon was the one behind the whole ordeal. He had not been totally defeated and came back with a vengeance. He broke through the dimensional wall and almost engulfed both the Real and Digital Worlds in darkness, but he was stopped by all the Digidestined around the world."

"Now, after the defeat of Myotismon, we got definitive proof that Millenniummon had traveled through the time space continuum. It is hard to know exactly what damage he did, because when Ryo defeated him, his schemes were also thwarted. However, at least one slipped through he cracks. Somehow, seemingly out of nowhere, Diaboromon showed up again. We think that Millenniummon was using him again, and had gotten transported to a specific time in this dimension. When Millenniummon sent him back, he must have been more powerful, because this digimon's power was exponentially greater than it was before. Thankfully, the Digidestined were strong enough to defeat him."

"The world became peaceful in the Eastern Quadrant, but a new storm was brewing in the Southern Quadrant. Here the children from the prophecy that were not chosen by the Forces of Good began to gain power. At the same time, an old program that had terrorized the Digital World in its early years, called D-Reaper, began to make its presence known. The Digital World went into crisis. The Digi-ports in the East were all shut down, and the boarders between the Quadrants strengthened in order to contain the mass."

"The Sovereign all had differing opinions on how to stop it. Zhuqiaomon and Azulongmon in particular disagreed. Zhuqiaomon believed that digimon needed to digivolve more in order to defeat the force, while Azulongmon believed that they needed to stop digivolving. The Digital World listened to Azulongmon's wish and turned the Digievolution Catalyst into the digimon Calumon, and sent him to the Real World."

"Ophanimon had interpreted the prophecy and predicted that the other group of people mentioned would come from the Southern Quadrant. When Annalismon and I first came there to get Monodramon's egg, we also analyzed people's partner potential. We predicted that Takato, Rika, Henry, Jeri, Kazu, Kenta, Ai, Mako, and Suzie would get partners."

"Annalismon and I came back a year later to scope things out, because there were a lot of digimon showing up randomly in the Real World. Unfortunately on this mission Annalismon was kidnapped by one of Zhuqiaomon's servants."

"The effects of the Virus' original invasion still hadn't worn off. Even after the creation of Millenniummon, somehow there was some data left over from Apocalymon. This eventually manifested itself as an evil digimon, Gulfmon. We're not exactly sure how or why, though."

"Yeah!" Takato exclaimed. "We met Omnimon that day! We met your digimon!" He said as he pointed at Tai and Matt.

"We never fought a digimon named Gulfmon to my knowledge," Tai responded. "You remember that Matt?"

The blond shook his head.

"It was Millenniummon." Ryo said quietly.

Everyone rounded to stare at him. "Becky is right that Millenniummon could really mess things up in a time line. When he blew up his fortress, he blasted us throughout the time line. He kidnapped all the Digidestined and the Tamers, and I used their digimon to battle Millenniummon since I didn't have my own. I had to battle an Apocalymon, but didn't defeat it totally. It manifested itself again as Mephistomon, which was the Ultimate form of Gulfmon. I sent Omnimon to try and destroy it before Millenniummon sent it into another time and or dimension. Apparently, he got away."

"Sounds as good as any theory that I have." Annalismon replied.

Becky picked up the story. "Things escalated quickly and Zhuqiaomon invaded the Real World with several of his servants and caused a lot of damage. The whole situation was aggravated by the interference of a government operation named Hypnos that sought to control and destroy digimon." Yamaki cleared his throat uncomfortably as Becky looked at him sternly.

"The Devas managed to kidnap Calumon, so the Tamers went to the Digital World to get him back. The group that went included the Takato, Guilmon, Henry, Terriermon, Rika, and Renemon, Jeri and Leomon who had recently been paired, as well as Kazu, and Kenta. Suzie was later pulled into the Digital World. Separately, Impmon, Beelzemon's rookie form, was brought to the Digital World by Zhuqiaomon in order to destroy the Tamers."

"Beelzemon succeeded in destroying Leomon, but the strong emotions it evoked eventually led to an amazing for of Digievolution that had never been seen before. It was called Biomerging. In this technique, digimon and their partners reached Mega level by merging their bodies."

"The Tamers were sent to back to the Real World in order to escape the D-Reaper. Unfortunately, the D-Reaper took control of Jeri and made its way into the Real World. The Tamers fought hard to defend the Real World, and eventually defeated it with the help of Hypnos and some brilliant computer scientists that had drastically helped the growth of the Digital World many years earlier."

"That about brings us up to the present, sans a nasty encounter with a Parasimon controlling a Locomon that the Tamers faced."


	14. The Calm Before the Storm

**Hello everyone! Here's another long chapter again. I have to say, I really enjoyed writing this one, so I hope you like it. Like I said in previous chapters this is pretty much the last chapter that I'm using to create the setting. Really, its a transition into the adventure (especially the last part of this chapter). Thanks to TrioF, Rhyme13kh14Xion8, Roses of Truth, and DigitalWarrior96 for reviewing! Keep the reviews coming. I'd love to know what you're thinking!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own digimon or anything you may recognize. **

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"Geez, you weren't kidding! That was a long story," Davis exclaimed. "You can talk almost as much as my history teacher!"

"Not the time Davis," TK hissed, elbowing the goggle head.

Izzy had a serious look on his face. Tai recognized it immediately. His friend was deep in thought. "What are you thinking about Izzy?" He asked.

"Everything really." He turned to Becky. "Why tell us now?"

Becky looked at him gravely, "Because we think the time of the final battle is approaching. Everyone here was pulled together seemingly by fate. The forces of good are assembling. That means we're about to fight a war. We need to start working though, we're still missing a few pieces."

Tai grimaced at this statement. He wasn't sure he was ready for this, let alone the younger Digidestined, and he had no clue about the Tamers. "Who are we still missing?" He asked.

"My brother Charlie, a girl named Alicia, both of whom are Digidestined, and the six Legendary Warriors."

Tai turned to his partner. "Agumon, what do you think?"

The orange dinosaur thought for a moment. "I think we need to know our mission before we make any decisions. Do we know where to find the others?" He asked Annalismon.

"We know where Charlie is. The trick is getting him to come back to the Digital World. As for the other Digidestined, I don't know. We never kept watch over her since she didn't have her partner yet. We can find her partner though," she replied.

Becky nodded, "Yeah, we rescued her when Charlie's partner died. Her name is Lunamon. Coronamon has been looking after her since he was reborn."

Annalismon looked worriedly to Becky, "How are they?"

"I'm not exactly sure Annalismon, I haven't been to the Digital World since the gates closed. I haven't seen Coronamon since you saw him."

Rika sighed exasperated. "That's all well and good, but what do we need to do after we get them? We can't just wander around the Digital World like a bunch of idiots."

"Isn't it obvious?" Annalismon asked. "We have all the original Crests except for the Crest of Kindness. We've got to find that."

"Really?" Takato asked. "That's it? That doesn't seem so bad. Unless of course there's an evil digimon already after it."

Becky shrugged. "No one else is after it that we know of, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. Something is moving. It seems calm now, but it's the calm before the storm hits."

Looking at the time, Tai cleared his throat and asked, "So, are we good to leave? It's getting late and all of us Digidestined need to get home. We can meet again tomorrow. We can't make any plans like this. There's been too much emotional turmoil today. I think we all need some time to calm down." He made eye contact with Sora, Matt, Izzy, and Joe. They nodded and started pulling the younger Digidestined and their partners toward the door.

"Wait a minute," Yamaki said sternly. "You can't just leave. We still have questions to answer, and tests to run. It may not be safe to keep crossing continuities."

Becky stuck up her hand and said, "Let them go. I'm still staying."

"But, what about home?" TK asked. "What do I tell Mom?"

"The truth, a lie, I don't care honestly. Whatever you think is appropriate. I can write a letter if you'd like."

Sora extended a hand to Ryo. "Come back with us. I'm sure your parents are ready to see you again."

The Tamer stared at her hand for a moment. "No," he said taking deep breaths. "I'm not ready yet."

Sora looked sad, "I guess, if you're not ready then, but I still think you should come."

Ryo felt exasperated. He didn't harbor as many negative feelings toward Sora. She was never in the tournament. Yet, her insistence was grinding on his nerves. Somehow he managed a polite, "Maybe later, but not now. I don't think I can face them yet."

"I'm staying too then," came Ken's soft voice.

Yolei and Davis' jaws went slack.

"But Ken!" His girlfriend countered. "What about your mom? You've already disappeared twice. You can't do that again."

"Yeah man!" Davis added. "Why stay here?"

Ken looked at Ryo, "I need to talk to Ryo. Don't worry it's not forever. I'll come back soon. And don't tell my mom about Ryo yet. If he comes back, I want to tell her."

"But Ken!" Yolei countered.

Tai shook his head at the girl. "Let Ken do this. Both he and Ryo need to." He turned to Ken. "We'll take care of your parents. Don't worry."

"Actually, instead of writing a note, why don't I cross the border and call instead?"

Izzy laughed, "Of course why didn't I think of that!"

* * *

Accompanied by the Tamers, Yamaki, and Janyu, the Digidestined made their way back to the border in the park. Izzy had his computer, which he had retrieved from a reluctant Yamaki, and was scanning for the warp. "Here it is!" He cried.

Yamaki looked at Becky. "How do I know that you aren't going to cross over and never come back?"

The girl rolled her eyes, "I have a bit more honor than that. But, if you don't believe me, why not send a Tamer over to make sure."

Henry stepped forward. "I'll go."

Becky nodded and ushered him forward along with Ken. "See you in a second," she called as she stuck her Purple D3 out. A bright light came out of the device and the trio walked forward. The rest of the Digidestined followed.

On the other side, Ken called his mom. "Mama?" He said when she picked up. Ken proceeded to converse with him mother, wincing a few times as she scolded him. At one point he took the phone away from his ear. "She won't let me stay unless one of the older kids stays too."

Joe held out his hand for Ken's phone. The boy gave it to him. "Mrs. Ichijouji, this is Joe. I'll stay behind with Ken. Don't worry."

The woman on the other side sighed with relief, "Thank you Joe. You are responsible. Make sure to get my son back here tomorrow."

"Don't worry ma'am. I'm on the job."

Mrs. Ichijouji seemed relieved and said goodbye to her son.

Ken looked over to Becky who was also just hanging up. She laughed and said, "Well, that could have gone better. Nancy isn't too happy with me." She turned to Henry, "Ready?"

The Tamer nodded.

"Ok guys," Tai said seriously. "We'll be back tomorrow after school. We can try to figure out a plan then." He looked at Henry, "Tell the other Tamers to meet us at your hideout at 4 PM."

Henry nodded. With that, Ken, Wormmon, Becky, Annalismon, Joe, and Gomamon waved goodbye and crossed over the border. As they disappeared, Joe exclaimed, "Dang it Gomamon! I have Biology tomorrow! My professor is going to kill me when I'm not in class!"

"Oh Joe, relax. I'm sure that Dr. Sato is nowhere near as scary as Ogremon, and he's one of our friends!" Gomamon replied cheekily.

"You're just saying that because you don't have to take his tests!"

* * *

Becky sat in a room of computers and sensors back at Hypnos, arguing with Yamaki. "I think Annalismon has made herself clear. You will not analyze her data. We'll answer questions, but she is not some science experiment."

She had been arguing the past hour with the government agent about scanning and analyzing her partner's data. When the question had first come up, Annalismon had said absolutely not. She had been raised with too much pride to let someone look at the secrets her data. When she was continually pressed, the rabbit stormed out of the room and left the arguing to Becky.

"I don't understand Becky. You said that you would comply so that we would know that you guys are allies. I don't see how this is compliance."

"Yamaki, you don't understand what you are asking. Annalismon is copied directly from one of the oldest digimon in the history of the Digital World. There are probably things in there that she doesn't want the government to get their grimy hands on."

"You do realize that you're talking to a government agent, right?"

Becky sighed, "Yeah, but you know better than most. You know that the Digital World is not something that humans can control, destroy, or create. I would bet my Digivice that there is a link to the code that created digimon in her data. Imagine the awful things that people could do with that sort of information. There is no way Annalismon will ever let a government database have that. She was raised in a life of secrecy."

Yamaki sighed, "It would be nice to know how different her data is to the data of Terriermon. We could see if any damage has been done by splitting the world into separate continuities."

"Everything has the same origin, so it should be pretty much the same. Here," she said as she through her pockets. She pulled out a stone. "This comes from File Island, which is in the center of all 4 Quadrants. It should have all four types of data. Analyze this and compare it to your records."

"A rock, really?"

"It's the best you're getting. You do not want to see Annalismon in a bad mood. Its ugly."

* * *

When Annalismon had stormed out of the room, Henry, Terriermon, Takato, and Guilmon witnessed the scene.

"Why doesn't she want to be scanned?" Terriermon asked. "It's not like it hurt or anything."

"Yamaki seems to think it's pretty important," Takato mused.

"I don't know, remember what they did last time to Terriermon? They could try something sneaky like that again," Henry responded.

"Well, why don't we try to at least try to get her to open up to it a bit more. We can ask your dad to do the scan. I bet he wouldn't dare do that again. Come on. I have a plan to convince her." Takato answered.

Henry laughed, "And what is that?"

"We give her what every digimon loves, food! Let's go guys!" Takato and Guilmon started marching down the hall toward the break room.

About twenty minutes later Henry, Becky, and Yamaki walked into the break room after Becky and Yamaki had reached an agreement. The scene in front of them flabbergasted them. Takato, Guilmon, and Terriermon were tied to three chairs with layers of Saran wrap with peanut butter smeared all over their faces. Annalismon was standing off to the side, the jar of Nutella in her hand licking some off of a spoon with a smug look on her face.

Becky broke into laughter and went over to her partner to give her a high-five. "I don't think I can even get after you for this. It's too good!" She said through fits of laughter.

Henry, also laughing, approached Takato, "They found a compromise Takato."

"Eh, now you tell me," The Goggle Head replied exasperated.

"Takato!" Guilmon whined, "I don't think I like peanut butter as much as I before did now that it's in my nose."

"What was that," yelled Terriermon, "you want a butter hose? I can't hear anything, the peanut butter got into my ears."

Becky laughed again. "I guess we should free these guys." She began to pull the Saran wrap off.

Her partner sighed in response, "Fine."

* * *

Rika sat in a small room staring at her cup of green tea. Sitting beside her were Ryo and Ken. She sighed and looked around the room uncomfortably. That older guy, Joe, had left earlier making the room almost unbearably awkward. You could almost cut through the emotional tension with a knife. It was like a contest, who could hide their real thoughts for the longest. She wanted out of that room, but that meant dealing with Takato and Henry who were probably trying to cook up some wacked out scheme with Yamaki. Plus, that also meant leaving Ryo, which she wasn't sure that she could do. He was like a drug in which she was increasingly becoming dependant upon. Sure he was a friend, but she shuddered to think what life would be like without him. It hadn't been like this until he had used her power in the D-Reaper. Afterwards, it was like something clicked between the two of them. She could finally see past the Mr. Perfect demeanor unlike everyone else. Perhaps she could sympathize with this Ken guy? After all, Ryo's absence in his life was his reality.

Finally, Ryo broke the silence, "So, do you know where you're staying tonight?"

Ken didn't respond. He had a far off, dreamy expression on his face.

Scowling at his friend's lack of attention, Ryo waved his hand in front of Ken's face. "Hey! Are you listening to me? You can crash at my place tonight, but it's a bit of a hike."

Ken shook his head and came out of his reverie. "I would really like to stay with you. It would be nice to catch up. Sorry about zoning out like that. I was just remembering that one time Sam, you, and me went fishing and didn't catch a thing. So we went to the market and got that huge fish and tried to convince our moms that we caught it at the park."

Ryo laughed. "Yeah, I remember that. Sam was so obsessed with bringing home a prize fish that even after we bought the fish; he went back to the pond and tried to catch something else. Success eluded him though. For all his genius, he could never catch a fish."

The pair laughed for a while. Finally, Ryo sobered and got a serious expression on his face. "Man, I miss him a lot."

Ken nodded sadly, "Me too."

Ryo got a pained look on his face. "Sorry for asking, but how did it happen?"

Ken sighed and buried his face in his hands. "We were crossing a street. Sam was in a hurry because we were late for soccer practice. Then, it all happened so fast. I was waiting for the signal to change. But Sam was in such a hurry; he was trying to cross the street. He hadn't seen any cars. He had turned around to scold me for not coming with him. And then it happened. A car was going too fast, and couldn't stop in time. I watched as he died in the middle of that street." Ken's voice broke at the end, ragged sobs coming from him.

Tears fell from Ryo's eyes as well as he put an arm around his friend. "I'm so sorry Ken. I should have been there. I wish there were a way for me to turn back the clock and change what happened."

Ken wiped away some of his tears. "As much as I wish that was possible, I think for some reason, you were needed here. It was probably a good thing that you went to this continuity."

"Maybe, I guess."

The pair sat in silence again for a while.

Finally, Ryo spoke. "Hey Ken?"

"Yeah?"

"Will you go with me to see my parents? I think I want to see them after the Digidestined come back tomorrow."

"Sure. No problem."

"Thanks." Ryo's eye's turned to Rika, "What about you Wildcat? Will you come too?"

Rika was shocked that Ryo would ask her to do something like that. "You really want me to come along too?"

"Yeah. It doesn't seem right without you. Maybe I'll ask Becky too. She and Annalismon would be good at answering questions."

"Well, ok. But this doesn't mean anything beyond friendship Hero Boy."

Ryo laughed in response, "I wouldn't dream of it."

Joe came back into the room. "Hey guys, that Yamaki guy says he's got all the info he needs for now. We can head out and get some sleep now. It's getting pretty late."

* * *

Everyone walked out of the building into the cool night air. The Tamers began saying their goodbyes and started departing to their homes. Becky, Annalismon, Joe, and Gomamon looked at each other, confused.

Ryo called out, "Guys, this way. Come with me. Ken is staying at my place. You can come too."

The four looked at each other, shrugged and followed Ryo toward the train station.

Rika looked on the scene with slight distaste. She didn't understand why, but she didn't like the doting look that Ryo was starting to give Becky. She didn't want to date the guy or anything, but she still didn't like it.

* * *

As morning broke the next day, Annalismon slowly opened her eyes. Years of training had conditioned her to wake up early, and today was no different. She looked around. She and Becky had shared the pullout in the couch. There had been a big argument the previous night where she and her partner would sleep since they were the only girls in the house. Ryo, being chivalrous, tried to give them the bed, but Becky wouldn't hear of it. Her partner just had too much pride. 'But then again,' Annalismon thought, 'I have quite a bit of pride too. I guess that a reason we're good partners.'

The rabbit began to shake the slumbering girl next to her. "Becky," she whispered. "It's time to wake up."

The girl took a deep breath and stared up at Annalismon with squinted eyes. "Is it morning already?"

Annalismon laughed, "Yup, time to get up."

"Alright, give me a second."

Becky got up and stretched. Following her partner, she soon found herself on the roof of the house. It seemed almost strange to her. This had been a morning ritual ever since she had met Annalismon so many years ago, but for the last year, she had done it alone. It was a relief to have someone else to train with once again.

The pair began to go through a series of stretches and training exercises. As the finished warming up, Becky laid down on the ground as Annalismon took a drink of water. "I know that this sounds sissy, but I really don't want to train today. I haven't seen you in a year, Annalismon," Becky sighed. "I kind of just want to spend some time with you. Can we get back on the boat tomorrow, and take a break today?"

Annalismon smiled because she had secretly been thinking the same thing, "Sure, let's not tell Gennai or Piximon."

"Ha ha yeah, I can imagine what they would say."

Annalismon sat down next to her partner, "So, what do you want to do?"

Becky sighed, "I think praying might be appropriate. I mean God did bless us enough to bring us back together."

Annalismon smiled. This had been a journey that they had embarked upon together. She remembered distinctly when they were saved all those years ago in the Digital World. It was strange to think that she had spent all those years of her life without the salvation of Jesus or her loving heavenly Father. It was got her through all those horrific battles, and it only strengthened her resolve to protect the weak. She grabbed Becky's hand. "Sounds good to me."

Becky took a deep breath and started, "Thank you Papa God…"

* * *

Monodramon woke as the Sun began to rise. He looked over to see his partner sleeping heavily. He smiled. This was one of the rare moments that he got to be himself, not the darkness the resided inside him or the vicious Cyberdramon. He often wondered what he would have been like if he hadn't had the darkness inside of him. He had vague memories of his past life. He knew that he knew Ryo then and that he had been hurt very deeply by the Digidestined. And, he had made the darkness in his soul a part of him, but why, he could not remember. All he knew was that the darkness was dangerous.

He sensed something above him. He got up quietly and navigated around the sleeping bodies around him. He stopped at Ken for a moment, remembering the night before. It had been a cool moment when the boy and his partner discovered that he was Ryo's partner. Apparently there had been some problems with that in the past. He continued out of the room and ascended to the roof.

What he found was something he did not expect. He saw Becky and Annalismon sitting holding hands and praying. It was strange. He did not often see someone praying. Ryo was pretty irreligious as he was himself. He wasn't foolish enough to think that there wasn't a Creator of some sort. Not many digimon were. Whether that creator was a human or some other force was up for debate. Yet, he had never prayed with such sincerity to anything. He had heard about the religion that the pair was practicing. It was all about love, and salvation. But, he could not believe in it. He had seen too much pain, even in his short life, to believe in such hope.

Monodramon decided to leave the girls in peace, and began to quietly go back toward the house. But, Annalismon's voice rang out, "Please stay Monodramon, we've pretty much finished up."

The small dinosaur cleared his throat uncomfortably, "No, it's fine. I don't want to disturb you." He feared this would quickly turn into an effort to try to convert him.

Becky laughed, "It's ok Monodramon, we're not going to Bible bash you. Seriously, Annalismon and I are finished praying. What's got you up so early anyways?"

The dinosaur sighed, "Nothing really, just kinda antsy."

Annalismon furrowed her brow, "Any reason why?"

Monodramon didn't answer. No one but Ryo knew about his dark side. But yet, it seemed as if Becky and Annalismon might have the answers he was looking for. Finally he responded, "You seem to know about Ryo's past."

Annalismon nodded a bit, "Not all of it. Just the parts that were important to the Digital World."

Taking a deep breath, Monodramon dared to broach the subject. "I don't really remember much from my past with Ryo before I hatched from my digiegg. I do know that for some reason I absorbed some kind of darkness. Do you know what it is and why?"

Becky and Annalismon shared a concerned look. Annalismon started, "Monodramon, that darkness is Millenniummon."

A look of shock and terror passed over the dinosaur's face.

Annalismon continued, "What you did was brave and noble. Ryo and Millenniummon are connected, somehow partners. Yet, you were his partner too, and to claim him as your rightful partner, you forced Millenniummon to fuse with you. It was the only way to contain and control him."

Fear laced through Monodramon. He had never expected his dark side to be so powerful or dangerous. He needed to digivolve as soon as possible. As much as he liked being himself... He couldn't bear to think of the consequences if he didn't digivolve soon.

Noticing the terror on the digimon's face, Becky asked, "What's wrong Monodramon?"

Almost shaking with fear, he responded, "I need to get to Ryo right now. I've got to digivolve back to Cyberdramon. Every minute we lose is precious."

Concerned Annalismon asked, "Monodramon, what's going on? There's no danger. Why do you need to digivolve?"

"Because…" Suddenly the dinosaur fell to his knees screaming in pain and clutching his head. "Not now!" He gasped desperately. He looked at Becky and Annalismon, "Get Ryo, I can't control him as Monodramon. Don't let me do anything to hurt anyone!"

With that Monodramon's eyes shut as he quaked in pain. When they reopened, Becky and Annalismon couldn't believe what they saw. The once playful golden eyes had changed into ones of sheer black. He stood up and gave the pair a menacing smile. "The sentimental fool. This is what he gets for not demanding he digivolve as soon as he fell back to rookie. Disgusting creature at least as Cyberdramon we can fulfill my bloodlust."

Terror laced through the partners. They were face to face with none other than Millenniummon trapped in Monodramon's body. "Millenniummon?" Annalismon stuttered.

Monodramon smirked and bowed mockingly, "The one and only. I do have to say thank you my dears. Good old Monodramon was putting up a good fight at suppressing me until you told him the terrible news. The sheer terror he felt was a nice distraction in order to break through. But now, for my favorite part, the killing. Ryo has kept my violent impulses contained for far too long. I do look forward to killing a human. It seems so much more satisfying than simply killing a digimon who won't bleed."

He paused for a moment and smelled the air. "Ah excellent, I see young Ken is here too. He did to foil my plans, but he may be of some use to me. Yes, that dark spore should still be ingrained in there. You know, that was meant for Ryo to make my goody-two-shoes partner more willing to take part in my plans. But Ken ruined it all. Now, he'll help out." A maniacal cackle came from his mouth.

Becky and Annalismon assumed a fighting position. They had been fighting together for so long now that only a glance was required and they knew. Becky would make a dash for the house to get Ryo while Annalismon held of Monodramon. Becky took a breath and nodded her head a bit.

* * *

Inside the house, screaming awakened Joe. He shot up to find Ken on his side, whimpering in pain as he clutched the back of his neck. Ryo and Wormmon were already kneeling next to him, trying to talk to him.

"Ken!" Wormmon cried worriedly. "What wrong?"

The boy didn't answer, but kept screaming in agony again. Ryo's brow furrowed. He couldn't figure out what was going on. Unless…

He looked around, but couldn't find Monodramon. His stomach dropped.

Suddenly, there was a large crash. The window in Ryo's room broke as Becky kicked her way in. She looked terrified. "Ryo," she said desperately. "Millenniummon, he took control of Monodramon. Quick, you need to get on the roof. Annalismon is holding him off the best that she can."

Ryo nodded, mentally smacking himself for not having Monodramon digivolve right away. 'I couldn't resist his request though,' he thought. 'He wanted to be himself for a while. And I have to admit, I missed him too.' He ran out the door to get to the roof, already having his D-Power strapped to his pajama, an old habit from his days living in the Digital World.

When he reached the roof. He saw a disturbing scene. A bruised and battered Annalismon was charging toward Monodramon. The dragon had an evil-looking smirk on his face. As Annalismon neared him, a dark force came off his body and nearly knocked the rabbit off the roof. Though Monodramon was only at rookie level, Millenniummon was somehow to channel a greater amount of power through his body.

Becky helped her partner back up. "Thank God you're here Ryo," Annalismon sighed. "I could probably take him down as BeastAngemon, but I don't want to risk killing Monodramon."

Millenniummon smirked, "What? Too soft-hearted to kill poor Monodramon to get rid of me?"

Becky snorted at the evil digimon's attempt at manipulating them. "Nope. Monodramon is our friend. And we especially won't do it because you won't be bound inside of him anymore." She turned her attention to Ryo. "We need you to get him to digivolve to Ultimate."

Ryo sighed, frustrated. "I know, but I can't do it while Millenniummon is in total control like this. There's not telling what he'll digivolve into if I give him the power to."

Becky thought for a moment. "Maybe if we knock him out, Monodramon can take back some control. But how?"

A menacing laugh came from Millenniummon. "Ha! You continually underestimate the powers of evil. They have been moving right under your nose. Even if you were to beat me, you will never defeat the others. The war is starting, and you don't even really know it!"

"Becky! Annalismon!" Ryo called. "You need to digivolve!"

Worry creased Becky's eyes, "But what about Monodramon. We could unintentionally hurt him badly."

"We have no other choice. I trust you guys."

Becky grimaced, and squeezed her eyes together. Yes, it was necessary. Things like this always seemed to be. A part of her mind laughed at the irony of how much Ryo sounded like Tai. 'Crazy boy,' she thought. She opened her eyes. "Ready Annalismon?"

Taking a deep breath the rabbit nodded, her eyes focusing on the target ahead. "Let's do this."

Grasping her crest, Becky shouted, "Crest of Life! Partner Mode Activate!"

She felt herself become wrapped in Annalismon's glow as their energies merged for a moment. Even in the heat of a battle, she love this short moment, where she and Annalismon became one. Then it stopped, and she was simply herself again, but now coursing with new power. She looked over at BeastAngemon and knew she was ready.

Again they charged forward. Becky felt the power coursing through her legs. She often wondered if this was what Digievolution felt like. BeastAngemon took the lead this time going on the offensive right away. "_Magna Blast!"__  
_

Millenniummon just laughed, blasting the attack away. "Trying the same thing again I see."

Yet even as he was saying this, Becky, who has continued toward him aerially during BeastAngemon's distraction, grabbed him from behind in order to restrain him. The digimon simply laughed again. "Ah I see what you plan to do now. How stupid of you to trust your victory in the hands of this weak human." He tried to blast her off.

But Becky didn't go flying. 'I have to stay put,' she thought. 'This needs to end now, and I'm the one who has to stop it.'

Distracted by the stubborn nuisance on his back, Millenniummon began to concentrate all of his power toward getting rid of the girl, yet somehow she refused to let go. The attacks would hit, and she would groan in pain, but she would not give up. BeastAngemon took advantage of Millenniummon's lack of defense. Getting up close she attacked again with her sword, "_Kairos_ _Blade__!"_

The dragon fell limp in Becky arms. Now was the time. "Ryo!" She shouted. "Swipe the card now!"

Ryo grabbed his D-Power and swiped his blue card. "Digimodify! Matrix Digievolution Activate!"

Becky let go and watched as Monodramon began to glow, and morphed into Cyberdramon. She sighed in relief.

But even as Cyberdramon stopped glowing, it was easy to see that it wasn't over yet. The energy from Digievolution helped Cyberdramon regain consciousness, and he was mad with rage. Within, Monodramon's conscious was in a fierce battle to regain control from Millenniummon. Ryo's brow furrowed. He recognized this behavior. He ran up and produced a whip of light from his D-Power. "Cyberdramon, stop this now," he ordered.

Becky watched in horror. "What are you doing?"

Ryo sighed. He knew that this looked so cruel, yet it was necessary. "I'm trying to contain Cyberdramon's bloodlust. If I don't he's going to go on a killing spree. I'm trying to reach the Monodramon part inside of him."

Cyberdramon fought again the whip and growled angrily. Ryo sighed, "This isn't going to work. I need to biomerge."

Drawing back the whip he cried, "_Biomerge activate!" _Once again he became one with his digimon. But this time it was different. He had only biomerged with Cyberdramon like this once before, the first time, back when the D-Reaper attacked. Millenniummon's darkness had taken over Monodramon much as he had done today. Ryo had managed to get his partner back to Cyberdramon, where he could better manage his dark side. Yet, the resulting blood lust crazed his partner to an extent he had never seen before. He yearned for the day that Cyberdramon could be free from this. It was this burning desire to save his partner from himself that led to Ryo biomerging for the first time.

As he merged with his partner, an agonizing pain split through his head. He sank to the ground, groaning in pain. Internally, Ryo joined Monodramon, and with their joint consciouses, began restraining Millenniummon back into his place.

Becky and Annalismon huddled around Justimon, who knelt on the ground grasping his head. Minutes seemed to drag by as they waited for some sign of what was happening.

Finally, Justimon's tense form relaxed and he stood up. He glowed and once again became Ryo and Cyberdramon. Breathing heavily, Ryo patted his partner. "Good job. We did it!"

Cyberdramon simply nodded.

Confused, Annalismon asked, "What just happened?"

Remembering the presence of the girls he laughed sadly. "I helped him fight Millenniummon back. Ever since Monodramon merged with Millenniummon, he has struggled to keep control. That's why I had to go to the Digital World with him in the first place. He was too dangerous. We found that as he digivolved further, he could better control his dark side. As Cyberdramon, he can almost totally keep control, except in the heat of a battle. And as Justimon, Monodramon and I can both keep him in check. I think its in that form that Monodramon has really had full control of himself since he's been reborn."

Joe and Gomamon's head peaked over the side of the roof. "Everything alright up here? I finally got Ken to calm down. He's laying in bed right now." He struggled to pull himself up off of the fire escape. "Is Millenniummon gone?"

The trio nodded, relieved.

Becky got a serious look on her face. "We have to keep this a secret."

Ryo nodded, but Joe's eyes widened. "Why?" He sputtered.

"Because," Annalismon answered, "if the Sovereign find out, they will try to take Cyberdramon away from Ryo. The idea that Millenniummon's consciousness still exists and can take control of Monodramon presents too much of a risk. We can probably tell the others, but we still need to be careful. Don't forget that Tai, Matt, Izzy, and Mimi fought against Ryo to make him into the perfect soldier. I don't think Tai would try anything, but I'm not really sure."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Becky continued. "I think we should leave it up to Ryo to tell them when the time is right. Sound good?" She asked turning to Ryo. She knew he would be worried how Tai would react.

Ryo nodded.

Annalismon shook her head. "Something doesn't sit right with me. Millenniummon is the Son of the Virus, and he said the war had already started. I wonder if he knows something that we don't."

Becky sighed, "I guess we won't know until they make a move."

"Umm Becky?" Everyone turned around to see Ken poking his head over the roof. "I just got an emergency message from TK. You've got to go back to America ASAP."

"Why?" She asked confused.

"Its your brother. Word just came that he's gone missing."


	15. What Happened to the Frontier?

**Hey guys! So for a change of pace, here's a short chapter. And guess what! It has Frontier characters in it! Thanks to RosesOfTruth and Rhyme13kh14Xion8 for their reviews! Hope you enjoy! Please read and review! :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own digimon or anything you may recognize.**

* * *

_"Electro Squall!"_

_"Crystal Breeze!" Kumamon shot his icy breath toward Wizardmon. It was up to him to save everyone. Agunimon was confused because he didn't know which one was the real Wizardmon. He had to be the brave one now. All he really wanted to do was go home, but they had to reach the Forest Terminal._

_Wizardmon sent another attack his way. Even though he felt very powerful as a digimon, he was starting to feel fatigue in his strong muscles. This had to end. "Agunimon! Kumamon shouted, "It's the one that has a shadow!"_

_"Of course!" Agunimon replied, "Pyro Tornado!" _

_The attack hit square on, and Wizardmon's fractal code appeared. "It's time to be purified!" Agunimon shouted. "Fractal code…"_

"Five more minutes! Finish up your answers as best as you can."

Tommy Himi shook his head and quickly turned back to his essay, scribbling away frantically. 'Dang it,' he thought. 'I was daydreaming again!" He sighed as he tried to make the best out of his sad essay. He really needed to stop daydreaming in class.

Though the Digital World often weighed on his mind, today was a day that he thought of it constantly. Today was the anniversary of when he and the others had first gone into the Digital World. It had been 10 years since it had happened. He often wondered if he would ever get to go there again.

It had been a long time since he'd even seen a digimon. About 6 years ago he saw some on the news. In fact, some evil digimon was trying to take over Odibah. That day he longed to have his spirit and D-Tector back. He would have shown him a thing or two. Then the Digital World appeared in the sky. He knew it as soon as he saw it be anything else. Then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. Afterwards, he never heard or saw anything related digimon again, save for what he imagined.

He felt a buzz in his pocket. He pulled out his smart phone to see a text from Takuya reminding him about their plans later. Tommy sighed as he got on his bike. For the first six years, they had gotten together on this day to celebrate what had happened today so many years ago. But then JP went to college, and then the next year Takuya, Zoe, Koji, and Koichi left too. Everyone started to go their separate ways. In fact, he only ever saw JP and Takuya anymore. They were the only two that stuck around Tokyo. For the last three years, he had mostly celebrated with Takuya. JP got really busy the further he got into college, and then even busier when he got into graduate school to further pursue his psychology degree. Takuya didn't care as much about his grades as JP, so he always made time to celebrate.

Then again, Tommy suspected that Takuya really wanted to celebrate because he really missed the Digital World the most out of all of them. The past few years had been really hard on him. First, he got injured and couldn't play contact sports for a year. He got kicked off the University soccer team for that. Then Shinya got in big trouble for smoking pot in the bathroom during school. Takuya took the latter really hard. He thought he wasn't a good big brother because he couldn't stop Shinya from doing it. It got even worse when Takuya found his younger brother passed out from abusing prescription drugs a month later. Takuya saved his brother's life, but Shinya didn't care. All he cared about was that Takuya called their mom and an ambulance. He refused to talk to his older brother afterwards, and it had been that way for a year now.

That separation really affected Takuya. After they had come back from the Digital World, the pair had been really close. Shinya just went downhill when Takuya went off to college. The warrior of fire had always been the sort of person that needed people to need him. Tommy suspected that was why Takuya had become his big brother in the Digital World. Now Tommy was all Takuya had. It was the only thing that kept him from sinking all the way into depression. But still, there were too many nights when Takuya went out a drowned his sorrows in alcohol.

Tommy got off of his bike and headed toward the park. Takuya stood there with the same ridiculous grin that he had back when they went to the Digital World. "What's up Buddy?" He asked happily kicking a soccer ball toward him.

"Not much. I probably just failed a test," Tommy replied as he passed the ball back.

"Eh, that happens from time to time. It's normal for college." Takuya replied easily.

Tommy had always loved this about Takuya. He didn't press unless it really meant something. Yutaka would have scolded him for not studying enough and not being devoted to his studies. He would have said he was being ungrateful to their parents for wasting their money. Tommy loved his older brother to death, but he was always so serious. It was nice to be with Takuya who wasn't trying to make him into a model citizen all the time.

The two passed the ball back and forth for a while, talking about life. After they had run out of mundane things to talk about, Takuya grabbed the ball and took out a basket of food he had packed for the occasion. The pair sat and ate in relative silence for a while.

Finally, while washing down some cookies with a carton of milk, Takuya asked, "Can you believe it's been 10 years?"

Tommy sighed and laid back. "Nope I can't. I wish the others were here though."

Takuya nodded his head. "Yeah, but you know, JP had to work, Koji has been practicing so hard for those martial arts competitions at his school, Koichi has been busy working on his medical degree, and Zoe well, you know…"

Tommy didn't need to press. He knew part of the reason that Zoe wasn't here was because she had transferred to a school in Italy two years prior. A few years back Zoe and Takuya had tried dating. They were together for about a year when they had a horrible breakup. That had been during their freshman year of college. She transferred soon afterwards. Apparently, Zoe still had family in Italy who were willing to pay for her to go to school there.

"Europe will be a better place for me to learn languages so that I can become a translator someday. There are many more languages nearby than here in Japan, and it's easier to go to different countries to get more experience." She had said.

Tommy knew the truth. She really wanted to get away from Takuya. It was too awkward since they were going to the same school.

Takuya laid down beside his friend and stared at the sky. "I wonder what it's like in the Digital World now? Think Bokomon and Neemon are still around?" The boy reached up and fiddled with the pair of goggles that still rested on his head. He refused to take them off. For some reason he thought that they gave him some sort of connection to the past.

"Hmm… I don't know…"

A loud incessant beeping came from Takuya backpack. "Sorry," he mumbled. "That's probably my phone." He dug through his bag and pulled out his sleek smart phone. "Huh? That's strange, it's not coming from this." He continued to dig in his bag as Tommy also dug in his bag. They pulled out several devices, including a portable gaming system and two laptops, yet none of them were making the loud beeping noise.

The pair had opened and dug through all the pockets of their bags, except for one on Takuya's. A look of confusion on his face, he reached in and pulled out an old flip cell phone. His eyes widened when he saw that it was the culprit for the noise. This was the phone that had changed into his D-Tector so many years earlier. His phone had ceased to work properly years ago, but he had kept it as a memento like all the other Legendary Warriors. He liked to carry it with him for the reminder of the time that he had spent in the other world. The old phone wasn't even on, yet it was beeping in a very annoying fashion.

He flipped the phone open slowly unsure of what to expect. The screen lit up and showed that he had 1 unread message. Takuya pressed the OK button and proceeded to open up the message. He dropped the phone on the ground in shock. Tommy picked it up and looked at the message.

The dark letters stood in stark contrast to the light background, reading: "**_It is time_**."


	16. Get A Clue

**Hey guys! Sorry it's taken so long for this chapter. I've had terrible writer's block. Thanks to RosesOfTruth and TrioF for their reviews! Just a little side note, if you actually take time to read these notes, if you catch any mistakes in my stories, grammatical or spelling, feel free to say something to me either in a review or PM. Obviously, please keep it civil, but I would rather know and fix it. :) Thanks for reading, and of course review! Let me know what you're thinking!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon, I just like to play with the characters.**

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Becky leaned against the window of the plane, and sighed heavily. She hated waiting. Life had been a blur since Ken told her that Charlie was missing. She had stormed to the border, Ken, Ryo, and Joe trying to drag her back along the way. "Becky!" Joe had warned. "You need to think about this. You could start a government crisis if you just leave."

She didn't care though. Charlie was her brother and she needed to get home as soon as possible. Her heart trembled at the possibilities. Charlie didn't know that he was part of the prophecy and he didn't have his partner to protect him. If he wasn't careful... She hated to think of what could happen to him. Maybe she was paranoid after her encounter with Millenniummon, but she was worried that the Digital World was a factor in his disappearance.

She got back to the Takashi apartment about two hours after she had left Ryo's house. Izzy, Matt, Tai, and TK stood there waiting. "What do you want," she had growled threateningly.

"Ken emailed and said that you might try to do something stupid. We're here to stop you," Tai replied simply.

Becky squirmed in her seat impatiently as she remembered the group's firm directions. She wasn't going anywhere unless she would cross back into the US legally, rather than jumping on BeastAngemon's back. They were the reason she was on this plane, not at home.

"Becky, are you okay?" A voice whispered. She smiled down at her lap. This was one of the moments that she was glad Annalismon could turn invisible. The plane ride would have been unbearable without her partner's calming presence. However, she could have done without the rabbit sitting on her lap for 10 hours.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I just want to be home."

"No worries. Once we're through customs, I'll digivolve and we'll be back in Colorado in no time."

Becky sighed and tried to go to sleep. It was going to be a long ride no matter what.

After an hour and a Dramamine, Becky fell asleep. She awoke to her ears popping as they began their descent into LA. 'Just a couple more hours, and then I'll be home. Hold on Charlie, I'm going to get to the bottom of this,' she thought desperately.

Customs was a mess like normal, but after a slight fiasco where she thought she lost her passport, Becky made it out. She hailed a cab to the train station. They boarded a train to a small town about 45 minutes away. It was a pain in the butt, but there was no way Annalismon would be able to digivolve anywhere near the city without being noticed.

When they reached the small town, Becky and Annalismon walked to the outskirts. "Ready?" The rabbit asked.

Becky nodded as her digivice and Crest began to glow. "_Annalismon digivolve to BeastAngemon_!"

Becky climbed onto her partner's back, and they took off.

About 15 minutes later, they landed in front of a brick two-story house with a rolling lawn in the middle of the countryside. BeastAngemon dedigivolved, and the pair ran up to the house. When they reached the porch Becky reached to open the door, but was cut off when it was opened from the inside.

A woman in her mid-forties stood in the doorway. She looked like she had been taken from an old television show because her house coat and up-do made her look like she came from the 1950's. "Rebecca?" She asked.

Becky grimaced at the sight of her mother, Annette. The two had never gotten along well. She was always the unwanted child in her mother's eyes. Becky never lived up to her expectations. As a young child, she had always liked playing outside, swinging, and climbing trees. Her mother would have preferred that she had played Easy Bake and Barbie instead. In her mother's eyes, Becky wasn't of sound mind. She didn't act like a girl, and in her mother's book that was a big problem.

Yet, even in this moment, Becky couldn't bring herself to hate her mother. Charlie's disappearance must have devastated her. Whatever affection that was lacking in their relationship was made up for many times over in her relationship with Charlie. It was like the boy could do no wrong. Losing him must have been devastating.

But sympathy quickly turned to annoyance when her mother's face worked its way into a glare. "Where is he?" The woman demanded, venom clear in her voice.

"What do you mean? That's why I'm home. If I knew where Charlie was, I'd go get him. I'd rather not come here to sit around like a dolt."

Becky's mom swelled up with anger. "Don't lie to me. You took him to that awful world that, that rabbit," Annette pointed a finger at Annalismon, "comes from. It's obvious you've been there. Bring him back now."

Becky sighed, "You're right, I have been to the Digital World, but that was in Japan. I wasn't anywhere near Charlie."

"Don't you start on that," the older woman replied. "I've heard you trying to convince him to do those unnatural things that you do."

Becky snorted. Charlie had gotten mixed up in those things on his own. It had nothing to do with her. "Whatever, I'm going inside and talking to Dad. Like I said, if I knew where Charlie was, Annalismon and I would be there as fast as we could. But, we had nothing to do with their disappearance. It's more likely he's here, in this world." She cringed inwardly over the last sentence. She actually doubted that Charlie was in the Real World. She just needed to get her mother off her back.

"Rebecca! Rebecca!" Cried the woman as her daughter pushed her way into the house. "Don't you lie to me!"

In the kitchen a police officer was talking to Becky's father, Jonathan. Becky had rarely ever seen her father this disheveled and downtrodden. His light brown hair was messed up and his face in his hands. The police officer was nursing a cup of coffee as he tried to pull more information out of the man. "Mr. Torraman, are you sure you son didn't have any enemies?"

"Not that I know of. Please officer, find my son," Jonathan replied sadly.

"Dad?" Becky called timidly.

The men rounded to see her. "Becky!" He father exclaimed as he stood and embraced her. "Charlie… he… he's gone missing!" Tear began flowing down his face.

Likewise tears came from Becky's eyes. "Don't worry Dad. We're going to find him. Charlie's tough, he can make it until we find him. I'll make sure of that."

The man gave a small laugh, "How did I end up with such a brave daughter?"

Becky just shook her head.

The police officer sighed and started his job. "I'm assuming you are Rebecca Torraman?"

Becky turned to the officer. "Yes that is true. Can I help you?"

"I've got to go to the station and file your father's statement. I realize that this is a very emotionally traumatic time for you and you just got off a plane. I'll be back tomorrow morning to talk to you about your brother, unless you have any information that might be relevant that you want to tell me now," the officer answered.

Becky shook her head. The officer nodded his head and said, "That's what I thought, though you're mother seems to think you've got something to do with it. I'll see you guys tomorrow." Then he walked out the door.

Becky rounded to her father. "What happened?"

The man sighed sadly, "We don't know. One minute Charlie was in the school computer lab, and the next a student was yelling that Charlie had disappeared."

The words computer lab perked her ears, "Another student was there?"

"Well, I think whatever actually happened, shell-shocked the girl a bit, because she was screaming that a dark thing in the computer ate him." Jonathan replied.

Becky's heart froze. A dark thing in the computer ate him? She ran upstairs to her room. Could Charlie be in the Digital World? She prayed that he had heeded her many warnings and actually retrieved his D3 from her room. She ran to her desk, opened up a drawer, and moved aside a stack of books. Fear coursed through her when she saw an orange and yellow D3. If he was in the Digital World, he was there without a partner. And, even if he did find Coronamon, he didn't have his digivice to help his partner digivolve.

She grabbed it and ran out of her room. She needed to get to the bottom of this, and fast. Annalismon ran by her side. "Think this has anything to do with what Millenniummon said?" The rabbit asked.

"I don't know. The first thing to do is go to the school and see if we can find that girl. I wonder who it is." Becky hopped onto a bike with an invisible Annalismon on her back and rode into town.

After a few miles of ferocious pedaling, Becky stopped at the school. She ran in the front door. School had ended about an hour before, though she imagined that classes would have been canceled if a kidnapping had taken place inside. She walked down the hall until she found the computer lab. It was marked off with yellow tape as a crime scene. No police were around, so Becky and Annalismon ducked under the tape to investigate.

The pair shivered as they walked in. Something was not right here. Neither could put a finger on it, but they both felt a foreboding cold. Annalismon stopped and reflected on the feeling. "It feels like something evil was in here. I can't tell what though."

"It was the dark thing in the computer," a voice said from the door.

Becky and Annalismon turned to see a blonde girl in a light green shirt duck under the tape. "I saw it, but no one believes me. I came back to see if I could work it out. Everyone says I was seeing things, hallucinations, so I thought maybe I could figure it out if I came back."

Becky stared wide-eyed at the girl. "You were the one with Charlie? I don't even know you."

The girl shrugged sheepishly, "My name is Alicia. I just moved here a month ago. Who are you?"

Becky held out her hand, "My name is Becky. I'm Charlie's twin sister. I've been in Japan for a while, studying abroad. Can please you tell me about what you saw?"

Alicia nodded and took a deep breath, "You'll probably think I'm crazy. It was so scary. Charlie and I were in here, working on a project that we had been partnered together for. The teacher had opened the computer lab special for us since I don't have a computer at my place. Anyways, we were arguing like normal, when the lights went off. It was almost like a black out, except it wasn't. The computer we were at had a white glowing screen. A beam of light shot out of it, but behind it was a dark shadow. The light came to me, and I didn't notice the shadow at first until it had almost reached me. But, it didn't get me. Charlie pushed me out of the way. The shadow turned into a hand and it pulled him into the computer screen while laughing manically. Then the lights were on again, but Charlie was missing. I ran outside and tried to tell people, but they just thought I was crazy. It wasn't until Charlie didn't come home that night that my claims were taken seriously at all."

"Sounds like a digimon to me," Annalismon said.

Alicia gasped, "What was that sound?! Who was that? What's going on here?"

"Oh, sorry," Annalismon said as she snapped her fingers twice to turn visible. "I'm Annalismon."

Alicia stared at the rabbit with wide-eyes. "It's a monster! This place is haunted!" She screamed.

Becky gave Annalismon a scolding look and walked over to the panicking girl. "Hey, it's fine. Annalismon isn't a scary monster. She's good. In fact, she's my best friend. She's going to help us get Charlie back. She's Charlie's friend too."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. You are crazy! That thing could attack us, and do whatever happened to Charlie!"

"Alicia," Becky soothed, "You need to calm down. Annalismon is good. You need to get used to weird things like this, because I'm assuming a device like this," she held out her D3, "came to you from that light."

Alicia shook her head, "I don't know. I dropped it on the ground and ran away as fast as I could. I don't want it, whatever it is."

Annalismon's eyes widened at that statement. "You did what?!" She exclaimed as she started frantically searching the ground. Becky did the same, looking for the digivice. Finally, after some painstaking search, they found it, a light yellow and white D3. "Jeez," Annalismon commented, "the police here are terrible. That should have been taken for evidence. Good thing it wasn't though."

Becky held the digivice out to Alicia. But the blonde refused to take it. "Come on, you need to take this. It's the only thing that can help protect you right now. Come with us, and we'll tell you about what going on somewhere where it's safe. I've got some friends that I need to call too. They can help out. We have some idea of what we're dealing with now." Becky said all of this to Alicia as coolly as possible, yet inside she was a mess. Charlie had been captured by some evil digimon and now was in the Digital World without his digivice or partner. This was bad, really bad. They needed to find him as fast as possible.

As they left the room, Becky noticed something new. She hadn't been able to feel it in the room because the foreboding feeling of evil had overpowered it, but now it was unmistakable. A soft humming of energy was pulsing through her. She had grown accustomed to this sensation, because it was a normal response for the data of the Crests stored within her to pulse when they were near their owner. But, this was different. It was coming from a different Crest. One that had never done this before, the Crest of Joy. Becky gulped at the implications of this. More and more it was looking like Charlie's disappearance was not coincidental, but rather an effect of the prophecy coming to pass.

Becky pulled out her D-terminal and sent an email out to Izzy. '_Get everyone to the States ASAP. I'll meet you guys at 38 degrees north, 108 degrees west. My brother's disappearance wasn't a coincidence. He was kidnapped and taken to the Digital World. We need to get him back. Without him, evil will destroy us.' _


End file.
